Journalists can't participate in special voting

Dr Afari Gyan said, in the earlier elections such as the December, 2008 election, discretion was given to the EC to allow other essential service providers such as journalists to participate in early voting.

He said the new law was crafted by not only the EC but political party representatives who insisted that early voting must be restricted.

The EC Chairman said 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.

Meanwhile the GJA has petitioned the EC to relax the new law, which bars journalists from participating in the early voting  process.

The GJA said if the law was enforced to the letter, it would curtail the effective and efficient operations of journalists on election day.

The GJA General Secretary, Mr Bright Blewu said the aspect of the new law was not hightlighted enough for the association to make the necessary intervention during the debate on the floor of Parliament.

“If the EC fails to allow journalists to participate in the early voting, the elections would suffer deficiency of the media coverage since majority of the journlaists based in the cities , would prefer to cast their ballots in their localities before moving tto their assigned destinations, outside the areas where their offices were located.