A member of the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP), electoral committee, O.B Amoah says the Electoral Commission reasons for refusing to compile a new voters register is unjustifiable.
According to him, the excuse the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs. Charlotte Osei gave at the just ended voters’ register forum is “untenable” and “intangible.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”ZuPfQjOargbMacePWqXsBvWyS3tr5Zye”]Mrs. Charlotte Osei at the forum explained that opening up the 30,000 polling stations across the country will amount to creating “conflict zones.”
“We have also thought carefully about the social stability cost of the new register. When you have your two strongest parties [NPP and NDC] taking entrenched opposing views, you are even worried that opening new registration centres will be opening up 30,000 conflict zones because…you are going to have rigorous objections and challenges,” she said.
However, speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis program, The Big Issue, O.B Amoah said Charlotte Osei is “unnecessarily heightening things” in the country.
“The EC is unnecessarily heightening things and giving this as a major excuse for not looking at a new register, I don’t think it’s tenable and tangible and they should be careful about such expressions,” he warned.
O.B Amoah also challenged the EC’s position that it will be too costly to compile a new register now.
He said “when they list all those things as things that they have to go through to get a new register, the person who doesn’t know how the system works will think that then where is the time to do all these things. That I found a bit disingenuous.”
“The worst part was when they were talking about social stability that the way the parties are entrenched in their positions, if they open a new register, all the 30,000 polling centres will be conflict zones. I thought that expressions shouldn’t have come out at all. Come February we are going to do limited registration, the parties will be involved so are we prepared for conflict zones in February 2016?” O.B. Amoah questioned.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana