Allow media, observers to partake in early voting – Kwesi Jonah
A senior research fellow at the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Kwesi Jonah has said allowing media personnel and election observers to partake in early voting so as to be able to do their job on Election Day was an issue the Electoral Commission could deal with administratively and does not require electoral reforms.
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“It was a basic administrative decision on the part of the EC. The EC can decide today, I wasn’t allowing the media to do special voting, I wasn’t allowing election observers to do special voting. Today, they can do it. You don’t need the law, you don’t need anything.”
Dr Jonah said this in an interview on Starr FM Monday morning whilst contributing to a radio discussion on the 10-member committee set up by the Electoral Commission to oversee proposals for electoral reforms.
Listen to Dr Jonah in the attached audio
{mp3}jonahonearlyvoting{/mp3}
In the 2012 elections journalists and election observers were not allowed to partake in the early voting contrary to what pertained in earlier elections such as the December, 2008 and 2004 elections where the EC allowed other essential service providers such as journalists to participate in early voting.
The rationale was to give journalists and election observers the opportunity to work effectively on Election Day.
But in 2012, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan’s explanation was that the law, C1-75 that regulated the conduct of the elections had indicated, among other things that those who were required to participate in early voting were EC officials, security officials and political party agents excluding journalists and election observers.
The EC chair insisted that the new law was crafted by not only the EC but political party representatives who insisted that early voting must be restricted.
What must have influenced the decision to restrict early voting was that media houses deployed all manner of people whom they called journalists to register to participate in the early voting process, the EC chair explained.
Even though the Ghana Journalist Association petitioned the EC to relax the new law, the EC did not allow it.
At the end of the day, many media personnel and election observers who had to travel outside their localities on Election Day did not vote.
For those who worked in their localities, the EC gave them a concession to jump the queue to vote early on Election Day but in some media houses, that arrangement affected the efficiency of their coverage of the elections.
Deal with it administratively
Contributing to the discussions on Starr FM, Dr Jonah who is a member of the committee to oversee the reforms said the issue of early voting was not a matter of reforms and that the EC could deal with it administratively.
“Some of our observers could not vote because they had to travel to be able to observe on voting day a day or two before.”
The reforms committee is chaired by a Deputy Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Georgina Opoku Amankwah with Mrs Rebecca Kabukie Adjalo, Mr Christian Owusu-Parry, both from the EC; Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC); Mr Peter Mac Manu, a former Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP); Mr James Kwabena Bomfeh, Director of Elections at the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and Mr Anin-Kofi Addo, the founder and Chairman of the Yes People’s Party as members.
Other members are: Dr Kwesi Jonah, a Senior Research Fellow at Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG); Dr Ransford Gyampoh, a Research Fellow at Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and Dr Franklin Oduro, the Head of Research and Programmes at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD).
The committee is to examine all the proposals for electoral reforms submitted to the EC embodied in the publication entitled “Proposals for Electoral Reform.”
It is mandated to separate the proposals into ones that require changes into existing laws, rules and regulations and those that require changes to existing administrative procedures.
The committee is also expected to determine which proposals are worthy of adoption and indicate the form in which each change to be adopted is to be incorporated into the electoral system. It is to submit a report on its work to the EC within three months.
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