The Director of Elections for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, has criticized the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC) for conducting the voter exhibition exercise within eight days.
He said this duration is woefully inadequate for such an important exercise which forms part of the preparation for this year’s elections.
The EC started the exhibition exercise on Friday, September 18 and it is expected to end on Friday, September 25, ahead of the December 7 polls.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Monday, September 21, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah said: “The NDC wishes to emphatically state that since the inception of the Fourth Republic, our otherwise respected EC presents to the people of Ghana such a malformed and anaemic register going into a major election.
“While we present to you impeccable evidence of anomalies on the provisional register, we will encourage Ghanaians to visit the exhibition centers to see for yourself the mess that the Jean Mensa and Bossman Asare-led EC has created.
“The exhibition of the voters register is a critical aspect of our electoral process. It is through the exhibition exercise that citizens who register get the opportunity to confirm that their names and other details are duly captured on the voters roll such that they will not be disenfranchised on voting days.”
“In view of the importance of the exercise, the exhibition duration in that past being between 11 to 21 days.”
“In 2012 the exhibition was eleven days. Even in 2016 where only a limited registration exercise was conducted in preparation for that election the duration for the exhibition exercise was 21 good days.”
“Unfortunately, with the 2020 registration exercise that was characterized by various anomalies, violence and chaos and also involving close to 17 million prospective voters the EC rather strangely announced an 8-day exhibition exercise.”