‘Don’t leave voters register debate to political parties’
The Chairman of the National Peace Council (NPC), the Most Rev. Professor Emmanuel Asante, has called for broader stakeholder involvement in discussions on the voters register, as leaving the debate to the political parties may not augur well for the country.
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“I am of the opinion that issues of this nature affect the entire country and will affect the entire election. If you leave it with the political parties alone, because they have entrenched positions, everything is going to be politicised,” he said.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday, the Most Rev Prof. Asante emphasised that “in democratic governance, elections play a key role, but for elections to be accepted as credible, we need to have a credible voters register”.
Divergent views
Currently, the two major political parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), are engaged in a war of words over whose decision on the national voters register must be taken.
While the NPP is calling for a new voters register, claiming that a research it has conducted indicates that the current voters register is bloated with the names of non-Ghanaians, the NDC contends that the existing register should be maintained and cleaned if the NPP has a problem with it.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission (EC) has said it has received a petition from the NPP for a new voters register.
Nonetheless, the Chairperson of the EC, Charlotte Osei, was quoted as saying, after her maiden meeting with members of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), that her outfit was yet to study the content of the NPP petition and investigate the complaints for which the party was asking for a new voters register.
That notwithstanding, the EC has told all the political parties to submit their proposals and inputs on the voters register issue by the deadline of September 22, 2015.
It also called on civil society organisations and all other stakeholders to submit presentations on the subject, after which it would hold a stakeholders’ workshop to take a decision on the matter.
Broad stakeholder involvement is needed
Agreeing with the EC on that score, the Most Rev. Prof. Asante said because the issue affected the whole country, civil society should be included in the entire discussions.
He said groupings such as the National House of Chiefs, religious bodies, think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) and the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), must be part of the discussions.
“I believe that once we look at the pros and cons, we should be in a position to come to a middle position which will grant a consensus that will augur well for the acceptance of the voters register.
“If we leave it to the political parties, there will be a lot of wrangling and in the end if we go to the polls with this existing one and somebody loses or somebody wins, the reaction of the losing party may not be in the interest of us all,” he stated.
Writer’s email: [email protected]