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I woke up to a long post to the effect that the LI to create the Guan district was born on November 9, 2020, so the EC did not have time to create the Guan district. This lengthy post also tells us that the parliament took a break and recites the deadlines for a CI to mature.
Thus, according to this long post, the birth of the Guan district and the parliamentary breakdown effectively ended the fundamental right of Guan voters to have a seat on the 1st of the 8th Parliament. Or, at least, excuse, if not justify, the termination.
Rejection, emphatically.
Once the EC has registered and issued an election car, it cannot vary, by mere directive, the number of electoral districts for the imminent general elections.
Otherwise, districts can be strategically created and parliamentary breaks can be strategically taken to abort the right of voters to participate in parliamentary general elections.
On the contrary, once the electoral mandate has been issued, CI can only create new electoral districts, but they must come into effect only for the next general elections (2024).
It is also clear that one CI, and only one CI, can reassign voters. No directives, no press releases, no prayers, no wishes. This is an important property of law that our administrative bodies and public officials have difficulty understanding.
There was a court case in June 2020 called Dzate where the Court ordered the EC to amend CI 95 to take effect on January 7, 2021. The purpose of the order was to realign the district and regional maps (see paragraph on Oti below).
So there was plenty of time to execute the court order. The idea that the EC could only act after the district was created in November is therefore fanciful. But assuming it wasn’t just a made-up reason, the corresponding notion that our MPs may decide to go into recess fully aware that it could cause some voters to make their right to representation itself offensive.
The problem here existed long before the new district was created on November 9. When the Oti region was created, the affected areas were assigned to that region even though they belong to the Hohoe municipality in the Volta region.
Dr. Bamba pointed out this anomaly as early as 2019. His argument was essentially supported by the SC in the Dzate case and the Court ordered the EC to modify the CI at the district boundaries to align it with the CI on the creation of the Oti region.
Therefore, the creation of the new district and the time argument are not at all convincing, especially when the Dzate case in June 2020 highlighted the same problem.
Parliamentary representation is essential and cannot be altered by creating districts and crying over the shortage of time. In other words, the right to be represented in Parliament is not subject to when districts are created and whether parliament is in recess.
That is why voters continue to be registered and voted in a constituency. It is an assault on democracy itself that some people belong to a no man’s land in a general election.
It is true that the presidential vote is counted throughout the country. However, voters are still assigned to constituencies for the purpose of administering the elections. So you can’t just show up anywhere to vote for president.
The EC cannot register voters in a particular constituency and announce on the eve of the election that these voters must vote for the president in that constituency and go elsewhere to vote for the deputy or in this case not vote for the deputy. This is a recipe for chaos.
Today’s divided Parliament is a real-time illustration of the consequences of preventing some voters from participating in general elections. In this case, the illegal EC directive may very well determine who becomes the president and who is the majority versus minority in Parliament.
Let us not excuse, justify, trivialize, propaganda or otherwise politicize the alteration of the fundamental right of some Ghanaians to be represented in Parliament.
If we cannot insist on such a basic and taken for granted right, then we should stop pretending that we are democratic or that we believe in constitutional governance.
Let this sink in. Nothing can put voters in no man’s land for a general election. Certainly not the creation of districts, nor an EC directive nor parliamentary ruptures.
Finally, the cure proposed by the EC to create the electoral district after the inauguration of the 8th Parliament is not a cure at all. Rather, it is another assault on the constitutional directive that you cannot create an electoral district to be part of Parliament prior to its creation. The logic of this prohibition is too obvious to develop.
