Parties usurping EC’s mandate – Ayariga

Founder of the All People’s Congress (APC), Hassan Ayariga, has said reports of violence characterising the limited voter registration exercise from some centres vindicate his party’s decision not to bus persons to those centres.

He said “it was the duty of the Electoral Commission (EC) to … educate people about the exercise” for which reason transporting registrants would amount to usurping the role of the election management body.

“Bussing a lot of people will lead to chaos and violence. This was our position and we still maintain that position,” Mr Ayariga told Chief Jerry Forson on Accra100.5FM’s Ghana Yensom, on Thursday May 5, 2016

“If you look round…if you have observed or followed what is happening – yes, of course, I have observed, I have listened to what is happening, I have seen it on TV, and I have listened to it on radio – there is a lot of violence everywhere. You know it, that the NDC and the NPP are clashing in most of the centres.”

He said the situation persisted because the EC had failed to carry out its core mandate of adequately informing potential voters about the limited voter registration.

“This is as a result of the EC allowing political parties to do their jobs. Their job is to send enough information for people to walk in there quietly, register and walk away. If the EC refuses to do that and now asks political parties to do that for them, definitely people will bus underage [persons], people will bus people from different countries, people will bus anybody because you’ve given them the mandate to do what they are not supposed to do,” Mr Ayariga added.

“So, why will you engage political parties to do your core mandate? It’s a constitutional right for every Ghanaian who attains the age of 18 to quietly walk there and register so that on the D-Day of voting, the person will vote.”

The 2012 People’s National Convention (PNC) presidential candidate, however, advised political parties involved in conveying persons to registration centres to be mindful of the fact that it would not necessarily translate into votes for them in the 2016 elections.

He wondered why after 59 years of independence, Ghana still did not have a system for keeping records of every Ghanaian, so that persons who attain the age of voting would be automatically registered by the EC.

“This is not a matter of politics; it’s a matter of common sense. And we should know that these are things that we should do,” he said.