The Upper East Regional Deputy Communication Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Benjamin Atuasi, has alleged that the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is working with the Electoral Commission (EC) to disenfranchise some Ghanaians who he claims are yeaning to vote out the NPP.
According to him, the decision by the EC to restrict the limited voter registration to its District and Municipal offices has been orchestrated by the New Patriotic Party to disenfranchise some people.
“It is a deliberate plot and well-orchestrated decision by the EC and the NPP to make sure that most people do not get into the electoral roll that will eventually get them out of office”, he stated.
According to him, unlike the NDC, which is financially constrained, the NPP has the financial muscle to transport people to the registration centers, and this, he claimed, is giving the NPP an undue advantage in the ongoing exercise.
“The NPP sides with the EC because they have the resources to bus people to registration centers. Other than that, we don`t see why a first-time voter who hardly even has a source of income to afford three square meals a day should be asked to walk about 30km or more and spend not less than GH¢30 to the EC’s office to register.
And not only that, the person will come along with two guarantors, which will come at the cost of that person to that particular center, and sometimes, because of the systemic challenges, these people are not able to register on the same day and have to pass the night at another cost”, he noted.
He also asserted that the decision by the EC to limit the exercise has defeated the purpose of the Constitutional Instrument (CI) 71.
“The EC, with the backing of the NPP, is seeking to disenfranchise some Ghanaians; if not, why will they limit others in the name of having a continuous registration after the District-level a6ssembly elections? This obviously defeats CI 71, which requires them to do this registration every year, which they failed”, he added.
Mr. Atuasi argued that the backlog and accumulation for the previous years demanded that the EC should have considered the concerns of political parties and ordinary Ghanaians and opened it up in their electoral areas for many people who have not gotten the opportunity to register in the past two years to register onto the voter’s register.
Source:
A1radioonline.Com.|101.1MHz|Gilbert Azeem Tiroog|Bolgatanga
