Ghana's Independent Electoral Commission is sharply denyingreports that the voter register is bloated with more than one million peopleahead of this year's general elections. Some political analysts say thereported swollen register could be a recipe for an electoral dispute if theelectoral commission fails to address the perception of inaccuracies in the register.Ghanaians reportedly expressed outrage about what they claim to be attempts tocause confusion over the just ended registration exercise.
Boththe ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and main opposition National DemocraticCongress (NDC) accused each other of encouraging non-citizens as well asunderage Ghanaians to register ahead of the elections. Owusu Pare is thecommunications director for Ghana's electoral commission. From the capital,Accra, he tells reporter Peter Clottey that the electoral commission isdetermined to ensure a free and fair vote.
"Wehave just come out of a registration exercise, and we are yet to getprovisional figures from the region. So, as I speak to you now, nobody can puta finger on any number of applicants that are to be put on the voter register.So it is not true to say that the voter register is bloated. We are expectingthat the regions will start giving us the total number of people theyregistered in the various regions between the middle of this week to the end ofthe week," Pare pointed out.
Hesaid the electoral commission has yet to determine how many people would be onthe register after receiving results from commission officials in the regions.
"Nobodyactually knows how many people have been registered at this stage, and that iswhy I have to debunk the notion that the voter register could be bloated. Butwe are not in position to tell how many people would be put on it until we havesome final figures from the region," he said.
Paredenied speculation about the bloated voter register could undermine thecredibility of the December vote.
"Notat all. It is not going to undermine the credibility of the elections. In factwe are going to give copies of every register to all the political parties sothe political parties will know exactly how many people we have on theregister. Besides that, the system here is transparent at every pollingstation. We have representatives of the political parties, so they observe whathappens at every polling station and report accordingly to their politicalparties. And if there is anything that goes wrong then they will report it totheir respective political parties. So if there is no wrong at any pollingstation, there is no reason why the credibility of the election could beundermined," Pare pointed out.
He said the register is still in the processof being verified for necessary corrections to be made in preparation for thegeneral elections.
"Remember,the registers we have now are only provisional. After the challenges have beendealt with and the exhibition of the voter register has been done and nameshave been deleted, then we will come out with a final register copies of whichwe will give to the political parties. So there is no reason why theseregisters should undermine the credibility of the polls in December this year,"he said.
Paresaid the electoral commission would well be prepared to ensure a free and fairvote in the general elections.
"Infact, we have just finished with this registration exercise. There are a fewmore people to take their photographs so they could be given their voter IDcards. And we hope to complete that assignment in the next two weeks, afterwhich we will go for the exhibition of the voter register. That is likely totake about a week or 10 days. And then there would be the filing of nominationfor various candidates at parliamentary and presidential levels, and we will goto the election proper in December. So everything is on course for the polls inDecember," Pare noted.