The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei, has said she does not regret accepting to Chair Ghana’s Electoral Commission, as the first woman, despite courting disquiet among Ghanaians for some of her decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t regret it, it\u2019s not an easy job and it wasn\u2019t meant to be an easy job,\u201d she told BBC\u2019s Akwasi Sarpong in a Facebook interview on Thursday.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”zdoXdxVJZYYd4tLQMOVfakzLvGpXu7vf”]Charlotte Osei, who chairs the seven-member commission, has come under intense pressure for taking some decisions since her appointment in June 2015.<\/p>\n
Her decision to re-brand the commission, which included the introduction of a new logo, was widely criticized, but she was adamant and defended the action.<\/p>\n
In 2015, some groups including the Let My Vote Count Alliance,\u00a0hit the streets to demand a new voter\u2019s register, claiming the electoral roll was not credible.<\/p>\n
But a committee set \u00a0up by the Commission to deliberate on\u00a0the proposals, shot down the calls.<\/p>\n
Parties in court over disqualification<\/strong><\/p>\n Currently, several political parties have dragged the commission to court for disqualifying their flagbearers from this year\u2019s presidential race on December 7.<\/p>\n As many as 12 presidential aspirants were disqualified for committing errors in the filling of their forms, an incident many have described as unprecedented.<\/p>\n When asked by Akwasi Sarpong why she has been singled out for the bashing, Charlotte Osei explained that, such persons mounting pressure on her fail to understand that the decisions are not only from her but her other commissioners.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t understand that it is a commission with seven people,\u201d she said, adding that such challenges are peculiar to electoral commissions globally.<\/p>\n She also used the opportunity to explain to the world how ready the commission is, to hold a transparent and credible election on December 7, 2016.<\/p>\n EC on a mission to rig elections<\/strong><\/p>\n Former Attorney General, Mr. Martin Amidu, has described the EC’s decision to disqualify flagbearer of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom<\/strong><\/a><\/span> and 12 other presidential candidates as a deliberate attempt to rig<\/strong><\/a><\/span> the election in favour of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC).<\/p>\n Martin Amidu in a statement argued that \u201cthere can be no free, transparent and fair elections when any of the disqualified aspiring candidates and any political party sponsoring them have their names added to the ballot more than three weeks belatedly, because the Commissioner\u2019s preferred and approved candidates would have had an unequal advantage over them in the contest for the Presidency.\u201d<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin A. Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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