The Electoral Commission of Ghana says its push for a change in the December 7 election date is unrelated to the petition submitted by the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church.
The SDA church, about a week ago, petitioned EC to consider changing the date of this year’s election.
The church argues that the December 7 date falls on a Sabbath, a day considered holy by Adventists and dedicated to worshiping God.
On Tuesday, January 23, the Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa, suggested shifting the date for both presidential and parliamentary elections from December 7 to November 7.
According to a Deputy Chairperson of the Electoral Commission in charge of Corporate Services, Dr Bossman Asare, said the Commission has for years been pushing for a change in the election date.
He explained that political parties had raised concerns about the limited time December 7 provided to have either a run-off or correct certain errors that might have occurred during the elections.
Speaking on JoyFM’s Newsnight, he said “Let me state very clearly that it had nothing to do with what the Adventist church brought in the form of a petition.
“This was something the Commission had thought about from 2020, but we did not have enough time to be able to put it into action in 2020. Yesterday [Monday], when we met at IPAC, we made it very clear to the parties that this was a proposal that came from the political parties themselves in 2015.
“The reasons they gave at the time was that in the event there was a run-off, the EC will have exactly 21 days, and right after the 21 days, the next one week would be inauguration.
“Apart from that too, we gave a reason that the time for the EC to work on organising the elections within three weeks will be very, very tight. Beyond that, the time for the inauguration you have a new government and an old government leaving office, the time will be too short,” he added.
Dr Bossman added that he encouraged the parties to support the EC push for an amendment as it is one of the ways his outfit could improve the electoral process.
Meanwhile, he said representatives of the various political parties at the IPAC meeting requested time to deliberate with their party executives and revert.
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