No political party should influence work of EC – UPSA Professor

Dean of the Faculty of Management Studies at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Professor Albert Puni has stated that the Electoral Commission(EC) of Ghana must continue to work in cooperation with the various political parties to ensure equity and transparency in the discharge of their duties but not to be influenced by them.

He said this in an interview on TV3 in relation to matters relating to the just-ended election petition.

Prof. Puni posited that “if you look into the constitution, the constitution actually specify that the Electoral Commission should be independent and shouldn’t be controlled by any person or authority, it is in the constitution so I don’t think that some political party should influence the decisions of the Electoral Commission.

“The Electoral Commission in its work can cooperate with them, they have to cooperate with them so I don’t think that there should be anything there, the decisions that are taken by the Electoral Commission are taken from the inter-party committee so the parties are all there, so I don’t think that these decisions should be anything that will prevent the NDC(National Democratic Congress) from dealing with the Commissioner”.

When asked about for his comments on the never ending criticisms levelled against the Chair of the EC, Jean Mensa by presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress(NDC) he replied “I have a problem there, the commission works with rules and guidelines so once the commission is working with the rules and guidelines and it is very transparent.

“I don’t think there should be something outside what the guidelines have specified so it is up to the NDC or any other political party to go with the rules of the electoral commission and I think that will solve any issues of suspicion or something of that sort” he pointed out.