Afari-Gyan Downs Parties' Hopes

The Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari- Gyan, walked into a row at a meeting of the Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) yesterday, when he failed to deliver on a promise to give all parties sets of the electoral register. The EC had earlier told the parties that they would be given hard copies and CD-ROM of the voters' register. A fuming New Patriotic Party Parliamentary Candidate, Mr.

Hackman Owusu-Agyemang stormed out of the meeting after a heated argument and later told the "Chronicle" in an interview that he suspects "a conspiracy of fraud."

Trouble started when Dr. Afari-Gyan told the stunned gathering of all the political parties that they were going to have to do with a CD- ROM version of the register instead of the hard copy because he could not find money to print them. Hon. Owusu-Agyemang leapt at him in protest, recalling that he (Afari-Gyan) had promised in Parliament that he was going to give them copies without any conditionality or proviso.

Hackman argued that one would need industrial printers that are available only outside the country to get that sort of voluminous printing job done, according to his own research. "The EC has the equipment right there, why can't they do it for us?" he argued. He was concerned about how the parties could easily cross-check on their own as to the number, names on the register and how many people cast their votes at the various polling stations on election day.

The Parliamentary candidate who is the incumbent MP for New Juaben North, was part of his party's delegation to the meeting that included its National Chairman and General Secretary, Messrs Samuel Odoi-Sykes and Dan Botwe respectively. There was unanimity among the parties that it was getting too late and almost impossible to find a printer and the money to print the register on their own for all the 200 constituencies and 20,000 polling stations across the country.

However, the NDC representative at the meeting, Dr Tony Aidoo did not have any quarrels being asked to print the register on their own.

"Well, we'll have to find the money to do it," he was said to have responded. Recognising the necessity for the parties to get copies of the register, the United Ghana Movement (UGM) presidential candidate, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby made an appeal to the donor community representatives present to try and assist the parties to get copies.

The donors present at the meeting were the US, European Union, Germany and the United Kingdom. The IPAC meeting was convened to discuss other issues relating to the December elections, including the topical issue of mounting electoral violence in the run-up to the elections.