Political parties in the country are divided over calls by the Institute of Economic Affairs(IEA) for the Electoral Commission’s strong room system to be abolished.
The IEA says the strong room must be eliminated to ensure that justice is served in any given election.
The EC’s strong room has for many years served as a strategic location for collation of election results.
[contextly_sidebar id=”R5WaM27WLLsjuslwWSM1y2tDReDNlAfn”]The Room has only the EC chair and a few representatives of political parties who peruse results that come in from different constituencies across the country before collating them.
The IEA is convinced the Strong Room has outlived its usefulness and should be abolished.
But speaking to Citi News, the Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, George Lawson said the IEA’s argument is baseless and should not be supported.
“If you go to the Electoral Commission, they have not written strong room anywhere. They don’t have a strong room, we have named it strong room…”
“They don’t know what they are talking about. Every region knows results are declared at every polling station, …so what are they saying?,”he quizzed.
The General Secretary of the PNC, Bernard Monah on the other hand said the IEA’s call must be heeded to.
“I do agree with the IEA in total that the concept of the strong room is not enhancing the independence of the Electoral Commission. Our presence in the strong room virtually does not do anything because the Electoral Commission only receives certified results from the audience.”
He opined that “we[voters] should be able to compile our own data from the various polling stations…we should be able to compile what happened at the constituency level, and what happened at the regional levels”
By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana