The deputy chairman of the Electoral Commission, in charge of Operations, Alhaji Amadu Sulley has disclosed that the EC has held nine Interparty Advisory Committee (IPAC) meetings with all political parties from January 2016 to date.
These meetings, Alhaji Sulley explained, bothered on issues of ensuring transparency and credible elections.
The EC’s revelations contradict claims by some opposition parties in the media about how the EC works. Alhaji Sulley reminded political parties that the EC operates within the law and all its activities are in accordance with the law.
Alhaji Sulley, who was responding to questions at an EC- media dialogue meeting in Tamale, said people doing voter transfer were expected to do it in accordance with the law. “The law is there and we have not changed it,” he said.
All the political parties know what the commission was doing but pretend to be ignorant after meetings”, the EC official explained. Other commissioners, who took turns to answer questions, dismissed suggestions that the EC is using professors and lawyers as presiding officers like Nigeria did, and said that was not the solution to the accurate tabulation of results.
The commissioners said Nigeria’s elections witnessed several legal actions with re-runs. The elections are not really about the calibre of persons used but the pressure on the officers, Mrs. Georgina Opoku Amankwa, a commissioner stated.
“We use HND holders, teachers and head teachers and these are people who know what they are doing, so people should try and lessen the pressure on Election Day. “On possible court injunctions, there are two schools of thought on it, one says stop work; other says go ahead and battle it in court,” she continued.
The commissioners also assured Ghanaians that, strategies have been put in place to reduce the incidence of spoil and rejected ballot papers. The EC said it is engaging different categories of the electorate on how to address the issues of both spoil and rejected ballot papers.
The commission said issues of placing the indelible is being looked at because it makes it difficult for some electorate during voting day. Balloting for position by qualified candidates, according to the EC,will be announced soon. “Elections are action and time bound, no matter who is involved, and the EC is mindful of that.”
Responding to questions why CPP qualified after they failed to meet the dead line of bringing their cheque, Mrs. Rebeca Kabukie Adjalo, a commissioner explained that the CPP chairman, Professor Edmond Dele walked into the EC office before 12 noon, which was the time given on Monday to all political parties to submit their bank drafts.
But, when Mr Akpalo, the IGP candidate brought a bankers draft for the presidential race and wanted to submit cash for the parliamentary, he was asked to send it back to the bank and bring the bankers draft which he never did.
“We (commissioners) retired for some minutes and went back to caucus to take a decision on whether to accept it or not, and we unanimously agreed on that, it was not a unilateral decision,” Mrs Georgina Amakwa explained.
The CPP chair was told to ensure that their bank drafts were in at EC before 1:00 pm, which they did. However, Mr Akpalo, one of the aggrieved aspirants came to the EC office with cash and not bankers draft and when he was asked to bring the draft, he never returned, hence his disqualification”.
Mr Akpalo, Alhaji Sulley said, was nowhere to be found after he was asked to come back with the cheque.
Five out of the seven commissioners namely, Mrs Charlotte Osei (chairperson) Mrs Georgina Opoku Amakwa( finance), Alhaji Sulley Amadu(operations), Mrs Rebeca Kabukie Adjalo, and Hajia Sa-Adatu Maida all appealed to the conscience of Ghanaians to endeavor to ensure peace because as they put it, “Our political party is EC and we have nowhere to go should violence erupt.”
