Deputy general secretary for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mustapha Gbande, has accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of taking advantage of the voter registration exercise as a means to campaign for a new CI.

According to him, the EC has failed to address the major concerns trickling in from the ongoing limited registration exercise and has rather resorted to implicating political parties in bussing minors to registration centers.

He revealed that well-meaning Ghanaians have complained about the operational system of the EC and the manner in which it’s carrying out the registration exercise.

Mr Gbande indicated that the EC’s data reveals that some 64% persons who have registered in the exercise used the guarantor system. By implication, he noted that without the guarantor system, 64% of the people who have registered would not have gotten the opportunity to register, which is a clear violation of Article 42.

“What we’ve established is that the EC is in haste, being alarmist, is reducing the essence of the registration exercise into a campaign for a new CI, and that for me is not correct. The exercise is ongoing, there have been manifested challenges and operational challenges that we expect the Electoral Commissioner to be very proactive in dealing with.
“She’s telling us that you can shelve and forego your concerns, you can allow MPs to continue to feed the number of people in the queue, you can allow people to transport themselves… Is that correct? Is that the way to run a system?”
Mustapha Gbande

Reacting to some accusation by the EC that political parties are bussing minors to registration centers, Mr Gbande highlighted that the NDC as a political party believes that if an individual is not of age in accordance with Article 42, he should not have his way into the voters register.

He emphasized that the voters register must be clean and transparent enough, and reserved for people who are of age, sound mind and Ghanaian.

“So, anything extra, is something that undermines the credibility of our election process. The EC’s position yesterday is quite surprising, very alarming, exaggerative and very lean, to the extent that the registration exercise is ongoing…”
Mustapha Gbande

Political parties bussing minors

Mr Gbande insisted that the EC has no justification for making such assumptions regarding the political parties in the country. He explained that the EC’s records prove that due processes are followed to ensuring a transparent registration exercise.

“We in the NDC are also collating figures everyday – our elections directorate has a center that takes data every day… We have also monitored the exercise and you go to a place where the EC officer will tell you that 200 people have been challenged – the adjudicating committee has sat and cleared 50 or 150 and the remaining are yet to be cleared or dealt with.
“So, when you lump this data, and you come on a podium to refer to those people as minors, on the basis of using a picture, I don’t think it’s logical enough…”
Mustapha Gbande

Moreover, Mr Gbande maintained that due to the fact that the country is in a political season, the fact that people are being bussed does not suggest they are minors.

He further contended that what would establish someone as a minor is when the person has “appeared before a registration center, presented himself, gone through the process of the law and fails to establish the criteria as the Electoral Commission proffers require”.

“That is why those people are challenged. At the end of the day, to exempt total minors, you have to deduct the data of people challenged who are foreigners, from people who are challenged on grounds of age…
“This committee is chaired by the Electoral Commission’s district officer, with representatives of political parties, and that they will require further and better particulars of people who have been challenged, either by the NPP or NDC, in order to be qualified or given voter’s ID card.”
Mustapha Gbande

Furthermore, the deputy general secretary of the NDC stated that until the EC follows due process, any move in the middle of the exercise, as the Commission has done is “very lame”.