The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has joined the growing list of political parties and civil society groups rejecting the Electoral Commission’s (EC)’s plan to compile a new voters’ register and deploy new biometric verification systems for the 2020 general elections.
The PPP officially wrote to reject the plan in a statement issued today by the party’s Chairman, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond read: “We believe that the compilation of any new voters register without the utilization of the National Identification System infrastructure is needless and a waste of precious and scarce resources of the Republic of Ghana.”
Apparently, the Ghanaian Parliament had Nicodemously approved a GHC 400 million financing to the EC for its highly contentious adventure. “A few days before that, the Electoral Commission (EC) conducted the district assembly elections using the same register that was used in 2016 to elect the MPs and President Nana Akufo-Addo. With one year to the general elections in 2020, we do not think that the compilation of the new voters’ register is a necessary project to pursue,” Paa Kwasi Nduom’s PPP warned.
The EC is insisting that it will acquire a new Biometric Voter Management System and the compile a new register before the elections. This despite the fact that the Akufo Addo administration which has promised to stay within its spending limits this year has not budgeted the huge cost estimation by the EC.
The Jean Mensah-led EC claims the current voters’ register is bloated and can only be cleaned by compiling an entirely new one.
Several civil society groups have vowed to resist the EC’s move as they suspect it was planning to manipulate the system to favour the incumbent party. Some have promised relentless protests, while others have threatened to head to the Supreme Court.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is strongly against the new biometric system and new register, saying that the current one is credible enough.