Five political parties with no representation in Parliament have endorsed the new Constitutional Instrument (CI) proposed by the electoral commission of Ghana for the 2024 general elections.
The Political Parties namely, Liberal Party of Ghana, LPG , The Great Consolidated peoples Party GCPP, All People Congress APC ,National Democratic Party NDP and the Peoples National Convention PNC, at a joint press conference said the content of the new CI was comprehensively discussed at various Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) Meetings and accepted by all the political parties.
According to the political parties, there was a consensus on the new CI between all the political parties and the electoral commission and wondered why other political parties have been opposing its introduction.
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- THERE WAS CONSENSUS ON THIS NEW C.I. AT IPAC
The discussions for a new Constitutional Instrument to introduce the National Identification card as an evidence of identity to apply for voter registration started somewhere October 2021. This was preceded by a 2-day retreat the Electoral Commission held at Alisa hotel in April to discuss the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.
The Electoral Commission wrote to 24 political parties to inform us to attend an IPAC meeting on November 24, 2021 to discuss a draft of the new C.I., which was attached to their letter.
We all engaged in a lot of deliberations and series of meetings, which included civil society organisations for almost a year and resolved to accept to use the National Identification Card as evidence of identification to anyone who applies for registration as a voter.
Since laws do not take a retrospective effect under our 1992 constitution, this then means that when this new C.I. comes into force, persons who are yet to be a registered voter will require only the National Identification card as evidence of identification to deal with the issues of having minors and foreigners on our voter register.
We were therefore taken aback when the Minority Caucus in parliament held a press conference and indicated in point 7 of their statement that the NDC was excluded from the C.I. process and I quote;
“Friends from the media, between November 2018 and August 2022, the Electoral Commission set up a Sub-committee of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) to discuss a draft C.I. on the Registration of Voters… initial meetings to which the NDC was invited did not materialise, only for the party to be informed in August 2022 that this proposed C.I. was ready for presentation to Parliament. In other words, the NDC had been completely excluded from the process of preparing the C.I.”
Regrettably, this is absolute false and disingenuous on the part of the Minority Caucus in Parliament.
We wish to inform the general public especially the teeming supporters of the NDC that their leadership are doing them a great disservice.
The C.I. was discussed openly at IPAC for almost a year and each party or representative of political party, civil society organisation had the opportunity to contribute to the discussions.
The Electoral Commission has only set up a sub-committee to discuss the modalities of conducting a continuous registration which is in pursuant to Regulation 9 (2) of C.I. 91 and also the proposed C.I. that states;
“The Commission shall in consultation with registered political parties determine the modalities for the continuous registration of voters.”
It is worth to note that the sub-committee is made-up of a member each from NDC and NPP and then 3 members among all of us political parties without representation in parliament and in addition some members from the civil society organisations.
- GUARANTOR SYSTEM: SUSPICION OF MINORS AND FOREIGNERS
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, if you recall, there has been several accusations levelled against themselves, that is the NPP and NDC since the beginning of our 4th republic, that, they bus supporters and sometimes minors and foreigners to registration centres.
These accusations have sometimes led to fisticuffs, gunshots, etc. at registration centres resulting in those centres being labelled as flash points.
We as Minority parties do not have the resources to engage in such conducts therefore our only hope to ensure that we have a system to check minors and foreigners from infiltrating into our register is the use an ID which is backed by law.
Regulation 7 (1)(j) of The National Identity Register Regulations, L.I. 211, 2012 states;
“A national identity card issued to an individual shall be used for the following transactions where identification is required:
(j) registration of voters
Election integrity is crucial for political representation. Therefore if elections are flawed, rigged, or fraudulent due to infiltration of minors or foreigners then there is no level playing field for political parties and candidates contesting in the electoral race, and voter’s preferences are unlikely to be translated truthfully into election outcomes.
- REGISTRATION CENTRES
It will interest you to note that the same Electoral Commission, which designated registration centres under C.I. 91, cannot be trusted to designate registration centres under this new C.I.
Regulation 2 of this new C.I. clearly spells out considerations for a registration centre similar to that of C.1. 91.
In fact Regulation 2 (1) states;
“In designating a place as a registration centre, the commission shall take into consideration the accessibility of a place to prospective applicants for registration”
- NDC’s Bad Faith
Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, if you recall, leading up to election 2020, the Electoral Commission decided to embark on compiling a new register.
The NDC strongly opposed it and some of us with no representation in parliament also joined them to form a coalition known as Inter-Party Resistance Against the New Voter Register (IPRAN). We engaged in a series of demonstrations across the country.
After the Supreme Court ruling that gave the EC the green light to compile a new register, the NDC demonstrated bad faith.
They engaged in a vigorous campaign through the provision of buses and resources to their members to facilitate them to register whiles indicating to our coalition to convince our members not to participate in the new registration to show that Ghanaians do not want a new register.
- SUSPICIONS ON THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION
It is regrettable that among the duopoly, they always seem to have unwarranted suspicions anytime one of them is not in government. One is tempted to ask, “what do they do with the Electoral Commission that immediately they leave government, the EC can no more be trusted?”
Can the NDC tell us how using a National Identity Card as a source document to register as a new voter be a rigging machinery?
The same Electoral Commission they discredit conducted their recently ended elections of their national officers and will also conduct and supervise their election of presidential candidate and parliamentary candidates.
Ghana has come a long way with our democracy and has attained enviable achievements in the sub-region and across the globe and we should not allow baseless suspicions to ruin the successes we have chalked over the years.
Let us channel our energies to implore government to release resources to the National Identification Authority to honour their mandate so that we can adhere to the laws that mandates us to use the National ID as an evidence of identity to register as a new voter.
We therefore use this medium to call on Parliament to ensure the new C.I. is laid to help guarantee the integrity and credibility of our voters register and reduce the chaos at registration centres. The lives of voters matter and we need to protect the ensure agitations are reduced to the barest minimum.
We are grateful for your attention. May God protect our democracy and enrich our thoughts to continue to raise the bar in relation to conducting credible elections. God bless our homeland Ghana and make Her great and strong.
We thank you all.
