The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has appealed to the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to return to the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC).
The NDC has boycotted IPAC meetings since March 2020 after the party raised questions about the posture of the Electoral Commission.
However, the Director of Research and Elections of the NPP, Evans Nimako, says it is important the opposition party returns to IPAC in order to be represented in decisions that will be of interest to all stakeholders.
“IPAC has been meeting; the New Patriotic Party has always been honouring invitations from the EC. We cannot force other parties to come or not to come, but if you check with the EC, you realise that anytime IPAC has been held, the party has enquired about the steps the EC has taken to invite the NDC.
“If you look at the current CI, the 91, it says that the EC must conduct continuous registration, and it says that there must be a modality committee, and that committee has been formed at IPAC. We expected NDC to be part of it and to be around so that we could all discuss issues that will take onboard the interest of all stakeholders, and they’ve reneged. So we’ll rather continue to call on them to come back to IPAC for all parties to discuss,” he said.
Meanwhile, the NDC has also indicated that the party is willing to get involved in the electoral process to safeguard the democracy of the country.
However, the Director of Inter-party and CSO Relations of the NDC, Dr Peter Boamah Otokunor, says the EC’s posture, which forced the party to leave the IPAC, has to be addressed to prevent further animosity.
“Now, the issue about the non-engagement of the Electoral Commission leading to our leaving IPAC and all those things, I think, is one thing that must also be looked at. It is in our interest as the fathers of the fourth republic democracy that we’re enjoying in this country to guard the democracy with all our lives and everything that we can command as a political party, and that is why for such engagements, we don’t take ourselves out.
“That is why we are engaging the Electoral Commission and demanding that we all collectively get involved to get the Electoral Commission to act right in terms of how they put their programmes together,” he said.
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