The Electoral Commission of Ghana has confirmed that the planned January 30, 2020, dialogued between it, the Council of Eminent Advisors and the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) is a mere window-dressing as it has already finalised plans to compile the controversial Voters’ Register.
According to the Director of Elections for the Commission Dr. Serebour Quarcoo, the decision to schedule the start of the voter register compilation to April 2020 is final. This is despite initial understanding that the EC will seek consensus with the IPAC and the Justice Emile Short committee of Eminent Advisors.
The January 30 meeting was to seek this consensus. However, Dr. Quarcoo on Friday told the media that the EC is not interested in any consensus. “You can’t get consensus anywhere, it can never happen and it will never happen. If we want to get consensus before we act, then we will never act,” he said.
Referring to the meeting, the EC director said the commission expects the IPAC and the Eminent Advisors to merely rubberstamp their final decision. “We have our programme; we will explain to them and then we move on with the programme,” Dr. Quarcoo told TV3 News.
The EC had scheduled to begin the compilation of a new voters’ register on April 18, 2020 and expect the provisional register to be ready by June 2020, much to the anger of critics.
The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), some smaller opposition parties and several civil society groups have kicked against the EC’s plans, suspecting it was scheming to favour the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the December 2020 general elections.
The anti-new register coalition have blasted the EC for breach of trust and have vowed to launch sustained nationwide demonstrations against the register compilation.