The Electoral Commission of Ghana has called on political parties to desist from encouraging minors and foreigners to acquire a voter ID in the ongoing limited voters’ registration exercise.
According to the Commission, they are striving to ensure that a credible register is created, as such, having names of unqualified people will only undermine their work and taint the register.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, a Deputy Chairperson of the EC, Dr Bossman Asare noted that “political party officials and members of political parties are also entreated to stop the practice of persuading people who are unqualified and ineligible, such as minors from taking part in the registration exercise. We have noticed that the minors and foreigners have taken advantage of the guarantor system with the support of some members of political parties.”
“As our key stakeholders, we expect the political parties to support us to ensure the voter’s register is credible because if there are people who will benefit from a credible voter’s register, we strongly believe the political parties will be one of the main beneficiaries,” he added.
Dr Asare indicated that they are stressing on this because of numerous reports it has received from its officers, with videos and pictures, of ineligible people trying to register.
“We believe this must stop and the parties, the media, CSOs, all of us must support the Electoral Commission to ensure the laying and the passage of our new proposed CI,” he added.
Meanwhile, the EC has successfully registered some 673,276 new voters within 16 days from the beginning of the limited voters’ registration exercise, Dr Asare said.
He said that the Commission is averaging 50,000 registrations per day since last week.
Dr Asare believes that at this rate, the EC is set to strike its target of registering 700,000 new voters by the end of the exercise.