ELECTORAL SYSTEM HAS ENOUGH CHECKS, BALANCES (PAGE 44)

Story: Kwame Asiedu Marfo, Takoradi

The Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has emphasised that there is a lot of integrity in the country’s electoral system.
He said all the electoral processes — the demarcation of constituencies, registration of voters, nomination of candidates, conduct of elections, collation and declaration of results — were important parts of the electoral system.
Those processes, he stressed, led to incontrovertible outcomes and made the results genuine and credible.
Dr Afari-Gyan was speaking at a special regional Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) forum in Takoradi.
The forum, which was on the theme:, “Building stakeholders’ confidence in the outcome of the 2008 elections”, was attended by representatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), the Democratic People’s Party (DPP), the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Convention People’s Party (CPP), the People’s National Convention (PNC) and the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP).
“There is a lot of integrity in the system but integrity calls on you to be vigilant and take advantage of the opportunity given you,” Dr Afari-Gyan emphasised.
He explained that there was a formula for the demarcation of constituencies, taking into consideration the land mass and population of an area.
He said if anyone was aggrieved about a demarcation, that person could petition a tribunal that would be set up by the Chief Justice.
Touching on the registration of voters, he explained that there was an opportunity for representatives of the political parties to be at the registration centres during the exercise every day.
“Most political parties could not afford representatives,” he said, explaining that “if you do not want to take the opportunity, that is a different matter”.
On the nomination of candidates, he pointed out that as far as the EC was concerned, there were no presidential candidates.
He explained that there could only be presidential candidates when there had been nominations in September this year, adding, “Then after a statutory declaration one becomes a presidential candidate.”
Dr Afari-Gyan said political parties were allowed to send representatives to the printing houses when ballot papers were printed for them to know what was happening.
Also, he said political parties and candidates had agents at the polling stations to take care of their interests.
“Being an agent is very important and not a job for the boys or machomen. Agents have very important work to do at the polling stations so they must be knowledgeable and know what is happening there,” he said, saying, “Nobody is too big to be an agent”.
Dr Afari-Gyan advised the political parties not to recruit riffraff as their representatives, adding, “Find qualified people to be your agents.”
A member of the EC, Ms Eunice Roberts, said the commission recognised political parties as major stakeholders and that they had a crucial role to play in the electoral system.
He urged the political parties to study the legal framework for the election and educate their supporters on the law.
Ms Roberts emphasised that the success of the election was a shared responsibility of the EC, the political parties, as well as the media, adding, “This year’s election is an important one and we do not want to make mistakes.”
The Director of Elections at the EC, Mr Albert Arhin, said the revision of the voters register would be a limited exercise at the electoral area level.
He said there would be 2,500 working stations, one each for an electoral area.