Ghana Electoral Commission Unveils Calendar Ahead of Polls
Ghana has unveiled a calendar of events leading to the countrys presidentlal and parliamentary elections on november 7, with activities meant to clean up the voters roll taking a centre stage.
According to the calendar released by the Electoral Commission (EC), the activities will revolve around efforts to clean the country’s voters roll ahead of the polls.
The release of the calendar followed pressure from election observers, civil society groups and opposition parties, particularly the main opposition New Patriotic Party, who questioned the EC’s preparedness.
Critics claim the voters’ roll was littered with names of foreign nationals and dead people. Ghana’s previous election results were disputed by the opposition, which alleged that there was massive rigging.
“This arrangement is an in-house exercise which is part of the transparency process by the commission to conduct the 2016 elections in a transparent manner,” EC director of elections Samuel Tettey said on Wednesday. “The commission is working with political parties to clean the voters’ register.”
“The EC is also considering the possibility of transmitting the election results electronically, together with the parties, we are looking at a better way to improve upon the system to raise public trust and confidence in the country’s electoral system.”
Tettey was speaking at a meeting organised by the Centre for Democratic Development and the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers to discuss lessons learnt from Uganda’s recent veteran ruler YoweriMuseveni winning another term under controversial circumstances.
Ghana’s Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) – a body involving political parties’ representatives - is expected to meet nine times before the elections to deliberate, share ideas and advise the commission on electoral matters, the calendar shows.
The EC has made provisionS in the calendar for a presidential run-off poll on 28 November and set 8 September as the date a presidential debate would be held.
Transmission of constituency results to the EC headquarters has been scheduled to talke place between 28 and 29 November. The presidential election results would be gazetted between 1 and 7 December.
Gallery
