Parties express concern about bloated register

Political page (lead) August 29/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

POLITICAL parties and governance experts in the country have expressed grave concern about the possibility of having a bloated voter register by the election date on December 7.
Consequently they have called for urgent and drastic steps from all groups including religious organisations and individuals to join the parties and the Electoral Commission (EC) to ensure that the provisional register yet to be displayed is cleaned up before the crucial general election.
Their call is in response to fears expressed by the commission that the register might be bloated by a million voters, thereby raising the number of present voters in the register from 10.9 million to 12.9 million.
The commission before the just-ended limited voter registration exercise had projected to register between 600,000 and one million voters but the huge number of people who went to partake in the exercise has overwhelmed the EC.
According to the parties and the governance experts, time was not on the side of the commission and, therefore, the earlier measures were taken to address the anomalies the better for the country.
Speaking in separate interviews, the General Secretary of the biggest opposition party in the country, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, recalled the early warning signals it sent to the commission regarding the exercise for which the EC did not heed.
“We told the EC to ensure that there was adequate funds released for the programmes that they had lined-up to avoid any mishaps,” he said.
Mr Asiedu-Nketia said the EC had always indicated that it was well resourced and had planned well to avert any problems in the course of the exercise “here we are, we have seriously been vindicated”.
He said the NDC had also suggested to the commission to ensure that the voter registration exercise was done earlier in the year to allow ample time to clear all anomalies before the election time but that was also not heeded.
Mr Asiedu-Nketia said with just a few months to the elections, the teething problems that the NDC warned about had manifest and indicated that the earlier all the stakeholders and the various political parties get their act together to ensure a clean register before the elections the better for the country.
He said the loopholes created by the commission were what caused many to register more than once so that if the commission had listened to wise counsel from the NDC and some other political parties, all these would not have happened.
He took a swipe at the EC saying “it has behaved irresponsibly by creating al those problems and called for the resignation of the chairman of the commission”.
“He was bent on getting the register bloated from day one and because we detected it and had it corrected, he has managed to use another means to get the number of voters in the register increased,” he said.
Mr Asiedu Nketia reiterated that what was happening should be seen as a national crisis that needed prompt action to rectify before the decisive elections.
The General Secretary of the Conventions People’s Party (CPP), Mr Ivor Greenstreet, also described the possible bloating of the register as an issue of great concern to the party.
“This should not be an issue for one political party alone to address but I believe we all in the game should work at ensuring that the register is clean before the December polls,” he said.
He said due to lack of proper education, many people used the registration exercise for the wrong reasons and in the end denied the genuine eligible voters the opportunity to register.
Mr Greenstreet said the problem required an Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting to address.
He said the EC itself needed to be extra cautious to ensure that measures were put in place to stop the bloating of the register before the elections.
The Executive Director of the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwetey, also signalled the consequence of a bloated register during the elections, saying “it will create chaotic scenes in many parts of the country which could trigger something nasty for the country”.
“Can you imagine what will happen when people with multiple names in the register are being prevented from voting within their party strongholds,” he questioned.
Dr Akwetey said it was up to the EC to engage the security services, political parties and civil society groups in cleaning up the register before the elections.
“The Judiciary must also be involved so that people will know that if they attempt something funny, they could be prosecuted and sentenced according to the law,” Dr Akwetey added.