We are not against electoral reforms - Kangah

Accra, May 3, GNA - The Electoral Commission (EC) on Wednesday said it is not against electoral reforms as some political parties are peddling. Mr David Adenze Kangah, Deputy Chairman in charge of Operations, who made this known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Accra said the reform began after the 1992 elections when the loosing parties made various complaints about the bloated voters' register.

The bloated register was a major controversy surrounding the presidential election of 1992 leading to the boycotting of the parliamentary elections by the losing parties.

The opposition parties pressed for electoral reforms before the 1996 elections, with a call for credible voters' register as the basis for free and fair elections. The EC undertook a complete registration of voters in October 1995 for the 1996 elections and a major feature of the exercise was the active involvement of party agents, who were given the same training with the staff of the EC.

For the first time in the electoral history of the country voters' identification cards and transparent ballot boxes were introduced. Mr Kangah said another major reform was the establishment of the Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) in 1994.

The aim of IPAC was to bring together representatives of all political parties together at a regular monthly meeting with members of the EC to discuss and try to build a consensus on electoral issues.

The donor communities that have assisted the electoral process are often invited to attend the meetings. He said all the political parties were given completed voters' register on CD ROMs.

The political parties were also trained on how to fund and organise their activities towards electoral reforms. Mr Kangah, therefore, appealed to the parties and their agents to study the electoral process, the rules and regulations as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution before making certain pronouncements.

He said the nomination of candidates for the December eight, 2000 elections would be opened from the 12 to 13 of September and until then it would be wrong to refer to any person as the presidential candidate of a party.

All those candidates who have been nominated by the various political parties are flag bearers and not presidential candidates. The EC will only recognise presidential candidates after they have nominated their running mates, have dully registered with the Commission and met all the requirements.