News:
July 7, 2020
Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu has expressed worry over the current Constitutional Instrument (C.I 94) laid before the House on behalf of the Electoral Commission by the Majority Leader Osei-Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu on election regulation 2020.
According to him with the current C I, the 2020 presidential and parliamentary, elections would be on a provisional register unlike previously, where the register was certified, registered and clarified.
“You saw that I was struggling to bring this to the attention of the Speaker, by the virtue of Article 11 of the 1992 Constitution, parliament can only watch and neither add or subtract and delete because it is inferior legislation to the parent Act 11. It gives me much to be concerned and worried”.
He stated that without fear of contradiction, the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections is likely to run on a provisional register and not a final certified voters’ register because; “A person whose name appears on a provisional register not as it was in CI 94 on a certified final register it mean that, the EC is running behind time what the ramification would be on the 2020 presidential and Parliamentary elections your guess is as good as mine”.
And further explained at a hurried press conference that the nomination for the presidential and parliamentary elections would be on a provisional register and wanted to draw the speaker’s attention, so that it is addressed.
“EC is supposed to make certified copies of the provisional results to the political parties for the conduct of the elections, this exposes Jean Mensah’s unpreparedness, incompetent and threat to sustain our democracy”.
Mr. Iddrisu urged the media to be interested in what is going on with the registration exercise as many of the registration centers are non-functional and pointed out his fear of many people suffering because of the inefficiencies of the EC.
As to whether the issue was not raised at the Business Committee, he noted that there was an attempt to define new C.I. but revealed that the current state of the C.I would see elections conducted on a provisional and not final certified register.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com