The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) is admonishing Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and political parties to unite and pressurize the President to begin the appointment process of a new chairman for the Electoral Commission (EC).
The current EC chairman, Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan is scheduled to retire in 2015 after steering the affairs of the Commission since its inception in 1992.
Although he has been lauded for his strict oversight of the operations of the EC, his work during the 2012 general elections was questioned following the historic election petition at the Supreme Court.
[contextly_sidebar id=”7M7IDinW02z6kb0f2n04K05808caOq4i”]Since then, calls have increased for the President to ensure the next chairman of the Commission is highly competent to restore the trust of Ghanaians in the EC.
The GBA is thus demanding that President Mahama strictly adheres to the qualifications of an EC chairman as stipulated in the 1992 constitution.
The Public Relations Officer of the GBA, Tony Forson on Eyewitness News said: “The President should seize this opportunity to give us somebody whom all of us would say “this appointment is the right appointment.”
He stressed that CSOs have a part to play in ensuring the right person is chosen insisting that “it is part of the duty of Civil Societies which include the GBA to encourage the President to do as Ghanaians expect him to do.”
Forson mentioned that if the President needs the input of the Association, “definitely, the necessary investigations will be done and the necessary recommendations given.”
“But it is the absolute prerogative of those that have been charged under the constitution to make that appointment to do that,” he added.
In a related development, the head of the Political Science Department at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr. Richard Amoako Baah was of the opinion that, critical attention must be paid to the selection procedure of the EC boss.
According to him, if people lose faith in elections, they subsequently lose faith in democracy.
He added that the President should use the appointment of a new EC chair to demonstrate to Ghanaians that he is charge as “President of the country and not as the leader of his party.”
–
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan