The Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has adopted the report of an ad hoc committee set up to propose mechanisms to make the election of its Members effective by direct universal suffrage.
The ECOWAS Parliament adopted the report of this committee during its 2020 Second Ordinary Session which was held via videoconference from 13th to 19th January 2021.
In its report, the ad hoc committee recalls the fundamental principles of elections which must be free, transparent, and fair.
The committee fully aware of the fact that all the texts of the Parliament advocate the election of the Community Members of Parliament by direct universal suffrage, recommends ending the dual mandate of Members in the ECOWAS Parliament and guaranteeing the representativeness of the Community Parliament.
The committee has proposed two voting methods for the election of the Members of the ECOWAS Parliament.
According to the committee, community elections could be organized as is the case in the European Union where each member state elects Community Members of Parliament per national electoral laws.
Another possibility proposed was to have Community elections governed by a common electoral system.
The ad hoc committee, in its report, recommends that Parliament do everything in its power to achieve the election of its Members by direct universal suffrage before the end of the fifth legislature in March 2024.
The committee also urged the ECOWAS Parliament to continue the study on the election of representatives by direct universal suffrage.
Also, the committee recommended that the ECOWAS Parliament organize thematic meetings on specific areas such as financing, the electoral code, the code of conduct and the conditions to be fulfilled to take part in the elections.
Furthermore, the commission recommended the appointment of a prominent Community figure as a leader to lead the advocacy process; to conduct consultations with the main institutional actors such as the Conference of Heads of State, the Council of Ministers, the Commission, and the Court of Justice of ECOWAS.
This prominent Community figure to be appointed will also organize study visits to similar regional institutions to learn from their experiences and carry out advocacy with these institutions.
Under Article 18 of the Additional Act of December 2016 on the Strengthening of the Prerogatives of Parliament, the 115 members of the Community Assembly are elected by direct universal suffrage by the citizens of the Member States.
While waiting for this system to take effect, the National Assemblies of the Member States or the institutions or equivalent bodies elect the deputies from within them at the moment.
Also, during the 2020 Second Ordinary Session, the ECOWAS Parliament adopted six Community acts which emanated from the ECOWAS Commission.
The adopted acts refer to the geo-extractive observatory framework and the ECOWAS cadaster system; the decision on the ECOWAS geo-extractive database and the static information reporting framework; and the directive relating to the adoption of the ECOWAS guidelines on corporate social investment (responsibility), localization, and content development in the geo-extractive sector.
The other three include the directive on ECOWAS monitoring and evaluation; the directive on the regional strategy for cybersecurity and the fight against cybercrime; and the directive relating to the regional policy for the protection of critical infrastructure of ECOWAS.
The Parliamentarians lauded the initiative of the ECOWAS Commission and welcomed the advent of these Community acts and legal instruments for protecting the economic environment of the region.
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