By: Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
A Former Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has revealed that the failure on the part of Electoral Commissioners and managers of Ghana’s Electoral Management Body to uphold the voting rights of Ghanaians is worrisome.
According to the longest-serving EC Chairperson, upholding the voting rights of Ghanaians should be a preoccupation of the EC commissioners and not politicians, as it’s turning out to be the case now.
He bemoaned the EC’s insistence on using only the Ghana Card for registration going into the 2024 general polls.
“This sad action taken by the Chairperson and her team of staff is a clear case of how the EC has failed to uphold the constitutional rights of ordinary Ghanaians to vote.”
Dr. Afari-Gyan made these and other serious negative observations about Ghana’s current electoral system when delivering his keynote address at the Constitution Day Public Lecture event organised by the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) Law School and the One Ghana Movement on Monday, January 8, 2024.
The astute election administrator insisted that though political parties always took certain positions favouring them, it was up to the EC commissioners to defend the rights of the voter.
“Political parties can take a stand that constitutes an obstacle to the realisation of the electoral rights of the people. When that happens, the electoral commission must uphold and protect the rights and interests of the people,” Dr. Afari-Gyan reiterated.
According to him, current happenings at the EC seem to suggest political parties are the ones defending the interests of the people.
“In contrast, the current Electoral Commission’s drive to make the Ghana Card the only document for voter registration when that card is not easily accessible to all Ghanaians and its refusal to consider the request by political parties to do the 2023 limited voter registration at the electoral area level closer to the people than at the district level.
This situation seems to indicate that the political parties are now defending the interests of the voters,” he noted.
The longest-serving Chairperson of the EC (1993–2015), in buttressing his point, cited an instance during his tenure when political parties proposed the “No card, no vote” idea with which his administration disagreed.
“The political parties once wanted the Electoral Commission to make it mandatory for people to produce their voter ID cards on Election Day before they are allowed to vote. The Electoral Commission said no to this ‘No card, no vote’ campaign.
The Electoral Commission at the time explained to the political parties, “It is the Constitution and not the card that creates the right to vote.
The card makes it easy to identify you as a registered voter. So on Election Day, if your name is on the register, which is a legal requirement, but you do not have the card with you, then the onus lies on you to identify yourself to the satisfaction of the persons conducting the election.
The political parties subsequently agreed with the Commission’s position,” he stated.
