General Secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia is asking President John Mahama not to yield to pressure in the appointment of the new Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC).<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”5z0dLqvIcQqjrqYqY4rVgWidZ6R1l0Vn”]He said\u00a0the President must abide by the Constitution and not to be swayed by public debate on the matter.<\/p>\n
There has been varied views and opinions on the issue of the appointment of a EC chairman.<\/p>\n
While some say the President stick to the dictates of the\u00a0constitution<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, others are asking him\u00a0to consult\u00a0broad<\/a>ly before an appointment<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n Speaking on the issue on Eyewitness News<\/strong>, Mr Asiedu Nketia urged President Mahama not to deviate from the Constitution.<\/p>\n He observed that nobody in Ghana has so far been able to pinpoint any problem that has arisen from the modes of appointment of Electoral Commissioners.<\/p>\n According to him, the existing appointment process has served the country well because \u201cit has helped us to stabilize the Commission, it has emboldened the Commission to take the necessary decisions in judging the outcome of elections.\u201d<\/p>\n He mentioned that\u00a0some\u00a0members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) are threatening legal action on the matter, \u00a0but if the President abides by the dictates of the Constitution,\u00a0he will have no cause to worry over such legal threats.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m urging the President to stick to the provisions of the Constitution because of the threat of taking the matter to the Supreme Court,” he said.<\/p>\n “Already \u00a0some NPP people are threatening that the appointment process will end up in the Supreme Court. If you do what is not provided for by the law that is what will take you to the Supreme Court and when you are in the Supreme Court, you cannot justify why you didn’t go by the constitution,” he added.<\/p>\n No benefits from appointing EC chair<\/strong><\/p>\n Asiedu Nketia dismissed the assertions that the President who appoints the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners of the EC stand to benefit from elections they oversee.<\/p>\n He insisted that available evidence does not support such claims.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cThe Commissioners who organized the elections and judged the outcome in favour of President Kufuor were all appointed by President Rawlings and in fact, the same Commission that conducted the 2008 election in which President Mills won, four out of the seven members were the appointees of President Kufuor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat did not stop them from conducting a transparent election that led to NPP leaving,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey \/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n