Imminent legal fight – CDD

General news for Friday, September 25, 2020

Source: 3 News

2020-09-25

There is a possibility that the Electoral Commission (EC) will be sued by one of the political parties before the presidential and parliamentary elections on December 7, Mawuse Domenu, Head of Research at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, (CDD-Ghana ) ha said.

His comments follow the numerous concerns against the ongoing voter screening exercise raised by the main opposition party, the Democratic National Congress (NDC).

The NDC had claimed that thousands of names of its members had been removed from the newly compiled voter registry.

To that end, the party’s standard-bearer, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has said that he will not accept the results of the 2020 presidential elections if the processes leading up to them are flawed.
He explained at a press conference at the headquarters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Accra on Thursday 24 September that the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC) has behaved in a way that does not generate trust among some political parties, ahead of the elections.

Addressing journalists about the alleged lack of some names in the recently compiled voter register, the NDC flag bearer said that the EC has eluded a major player in Ghana’s electoral process, the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) and this It has led to incalculable challenges from the electoral management body as well as the parties.

“There is something going on at this exhibit that we have never seen since 1992. We have been participating in the registration and display of electoral registers and some of the areas where a whole segment of names, thousands of names may disappear from the register is unacceptable.

“That’s why we say the problem is the generalized scale of the incident and the quantum magnitude that we are dealing with.

For him, the exhibition is often characterized by low turnout, so the situation will spiral out of control on election day.

“So if you go to those stations where the names of 700 people are missing and the names of 700 people are missing, if they don’t come for exhibition, how are you going to capture and replace them in the registry?

Speaking about this development in an interview with Alfred Ocansey in News 360 on TV3 on Thursday, September 24, Mr. Domenu said: “Looking at the EC calendar, I think the calendar is very restricted, so if you don’t take time there will probably be all kinds of legal fights.

“We believe that the display exercise provides an opportunity to clean up the record. Furthermore, once the registry is also prepared and ready, once it is certified, the EC will provide copies to the various political parties.

“That also provides another opportunity for the parties to really look at the record and try to resolve some of the issues there.”