By Laudia Sawer
Tema, Jun 6, GNA – Political parties in Ghana have been urged to allow the Electoral Commission to discharge its constitutional mandate without unnecessary interference.
Rev. Dr. Samuel Worlanyo Mensah, an independent Presidential hopeful and an economist, reacting to recent happenings in the ongoing voter transfer exercise, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that as an autonomous body, the EC must be given the free hand to operate and prepare the country for the December 7 general election.
Rev. Mensah, who is also a lecturer at Wisconsin University and the Executive Director of the Centre for Greater Impact Africa, said, “once the electoral commission is an autonomous body, we must allow it to operate as such; we must not reduce the commission into the form of a mobile money vendor.”
He condemned the overpoliticization of things in Ghana, including reducing the Electoral Commission’s activities to partisan politics, noting that Ghana, being a beacon of democracy in Africa and looking at how far it had come, should not allow such things to fester.
“NDC and NPP pushing this country is condemnable, and I believe all well-meaning Ghanaians should stand up and condemn such acts; pushing this country to anarchy, chaos, and a state of instability will not help us as a country,” he said.
According to the independent Presidential hopeful, the transfer of votes was equal to registering for a Ghana card, adding that during such registration, no political party representatives are needed, questioning their insistence on being at the transfer centres.
He said every political party or movement had access to the EC database, and whatever information they wanted from the commission, the appropriate channels could be used to get answers from the EC.
He expressed his belief that the NPP and the NDC were trying to create a scene to plunge the country into chaos during the elections, stressing that Ghanaians must not accept such acts as the country did not belong to only the two political parties.
“What new thing are they going to bring on board? They think Ghanaians are anxious to see them in power; if they think they are tired, nobody is forcing anyone of them to govern this country. Please, they should give us a break and allow the EC to work,” he stated.
He advised the youth not to allow themselves to be used by political parties for their dirty activities, reminding them that they would end up messing up their lives while the parties made political capital out of it.
On June 2, 2024, the EC the EC issued a directive to its officers to discontinue the observation of the transfer of votes exercises by agents of political parties, following some clashes between agents of the NDC and NPP at some district offices.
The directive was, however, reversed with a stern warning to the two parties, following some reactions from stakeholders.
GNA