ROPAA Divides Parties

Political parties continue to share divergent views on the ability of the Electoral Commission (EC) to successfully operationalise the Representative of People’s Amendment Law in election 2020 without any hitches.

This follows growing concerns from some quarters about the resource strength of the country’s election management body. The court on Monday, December 18 ordered the EC to implement the law within 12 months.

The EC is expected to immediately start the process by laying a constitutional Instrument (C.I.) before parliament to spell out the modalities for the implementation but the Deputy General Secretary of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koku Anyidoho, is questioning the practicability of the court order.

“Inherent in the judgement is the tacit acceptance and the probability that the EC will not be able to meet that 12-month deadline. So, nothing has happened, we are still where we are since 2006 because of the practical implementation challenges,” he told Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show.

He said there are many challenges including inadequate resources with domestic voting.

“So, now, if you extend the thing worldwide, how is the EC going to manage its staff strength and the support staff to be able to go round worldwide. Are you going to do the voting simultaneously as it happens in Ghana? When and where are you going to put the ballot boxes? How are you going to determine the polling stations?” he questioned.

But the Director of Elections for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah believes otherwise.

He said the EC has been given a year to roll out the processes so they must assess their strengths and assess the views of all stakeholders and “examine various scenarios across the world and perfect our own. If not perfect, bring it to near perfection”.

For him, the right to vote by Ghanaian citizens abroad cannot be flouted and everything must be done to ensure implementation of the court ruling.

Source: ClassFMonline