Religious leaders urge EC to engage stakeholders on voter register

The Eminent Persons Group of Religious Leaders (EPG) and the Christian Council of Ghana have called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to provide an enabling environment for all major stakeholders to engage more in the electoral processes.

That, they said, would help to avoid suspicion on the part of all the critical stakeholders.

The EPG has also appealed to Ghanaians and the political parties to assist the EC in any way possible to facilitate a smooth compilation of the final voter register in the run-up to the December 7 elections.

A statement signed by the Rt. Reverend Professor J.O.Y. Mante, Chairman of the EPG, and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said both the Christian Council and the EPG believed that the just ended voter exhibition exercise would help correct the mistakes identified.

It said by law, the EC was required to publish the voter register for the electorate to validate their details.

It said the voter exhibition exercise also offered an opportunity to correct entries and to challenge the exclusion of eligible and inclusion of ineligible persons “before the EC publishes the certified voter register.”

The statement, however, said the EPG and the Christian Council had also taken note of the complaints by some political parties, typically the National Democratic Congress, as well as the response by the EC of the seemingly large numbers of registrants, who could not find their names on the provisional voters list.

It, therefore, urged the EC to welcome any such complaints and assuage the fears of disenfranchising any registered voter.

“Additionally, the EC must fully involve IPAC and other key stakeholders in all the processes to avoid situations that we are witnessing at this time when the election is so close,” the statement said.

“We call on the media to support the process and avoid sensationalism.”