GHANA WILL GO INTO THE NEXT ELECTION WITH AN INCREDIBLE REGISTER

GHANA WILL GO INTO THE NEXT ELECTION WITH AN INCREDIBLE REGISTER

Even though a voters' register can not be a 100% credible, it is the wish of every democracy practicing country to make sure that the non credibility of its voters' register is very much reduced.

This has become urgent for all such countries because it is believed by most that a credible register is the very first step to achieving a credible electoral results.

It is for this same reason that Ghana under the fourth republic has continuously pushed for the various electoral reforms since 1992, so to help get our register as credible as ever.

As a result of the motivation above, the battle by Ghana to get a credible register for the 2016 general elections has not been different.

In order to get a credible or near credible register for the 2016 election, Ghana for years(2013-2016) through serious debates both in the law court and the court of public opinions finally settled on the cleaning of the existing 2012 Biometric Register instead of a new register approach.

The Electoral Commission(EC) therefore suggested a cleaning of the existing Biometric Register during the period of their  Exhibition Exercise.

It started from the 21st July, 2016 to 7th August, 2016.

Eventhough a cleaning of the existing register was not a bad approach to help get a register clean and thus credible, research conducted by Critical Thinkers International (CTI) has shown that the objective of this approach with respect to the cleaning of Ghana's register has totally been defeated due to the wrong and ineffective Cleaning Method the EC employed in cleaning the existing Biometric Voters' Register and so, the group is of the belief that Ghana will go into the next general elections with an incredible register.

Below are our reasons;

The objective of the cleaning approach was to help get rid of the dead, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card registrants, foriegners and minors from the existing Biometric Register, but our research which focused on the removal of the dead and the NHIS card registrants from the register has shown that majority of the dead and NHIS Card Registrants are still left in the register after the Exhibition Exercise through which the EC intended to remove all such names from the register, has come to an end.

Below is our analysis to prove our claim.

The research was conducted in about 50% of the number of constituencies in Ghana with some of the names of such constituencies being Bimbilla, Chereponi, Wa west, Ejura-Sekyedomasi, Asawasi, Obuasi West, Adansi Asokwa, Kwabre East, New Edubiase, Awutu Senya East and West, KEEA, Cape Coast North, Effutu, Ahanta West, Effia, Kwesimintim, Amenfi West, Nkoransa South and North, Ahafo Ano West, Asutifi South, Akan, Biakoye, Anlo, South and Central Tongu, Ho west and Agortime Ziobe.

A. Removal Of The Dead

Our research proved that most of the known dead people in the consistuencies, even those with their obituary notice very fresh in these constituencies were still found in the register of these constituencies.

Our research proved that majority of the dead(90%) were not removed because;

i. The relatives of these dead people who live in the same consistuencies as the consistuencies that their dead relatives had registered in, did not see the need to help remove the names of such dead people from the register for reasons best known to them.

ii. Some of the relatives of these dead people do not live in the same constituencies their dead relatives registered in, and so found it needless to incur cost, risk their lives to travel to get the names of their dead relatives off the register in such constituencies.

Moreover, some of the relatives of such dead people do not even know the constituencies their dead relatives registered in.

iii. Some of these dead people do not even have records of their relatives so that they could had even been conducted to help get rid of them from the register.

B. Removal Of The NHIS Card Registrants

Lots of the electorates whom we interviewed revealed that majority of them whom used the NHIS card for the registration during the 2012 biometric registration did not get their names in the list of the NHIS Card Registrants but rather the many who did not use the NHIS Card for registration had their names in the list of the NHIS Card Registrants.

For this totally failed agenda of getting a credible register for the 2016 general elections, CTI will fully push the blame on the EC for using such an incredible, ineffective and a wrong method to help clean the register rather than the more effective Crabbe Committee's Validation method of which the majority in and outside Ghana believed it would do a better job.

Since an incredible register is likely to affect an election results, we suggest the polling station party agents, polling station electoral officers, the media, the security agency and all other stakeholders to ensure anyone who trys to take advantage of the incredible state of the register to attempt any electoral malpractices to be dealt with appropriately so as to help become a detterrant to others.

Thank you.

Hhhmm, may God be praised always

Nana Kwadwo Akwaa

(WRITER)

........SIGNED......

Critical Thinkers International

[Creative Minds; Changing The World]

criticalthinkersintl@gmail.com

www.criticalthinkersghanablogspot.com

.....SPOKESPERSONS......

Nana Kwadwo Akwaa

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Adiepena Mirekua-Sarpong

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Innocent Supremo Tetteh

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Isaac Baah

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Emmanuel De-Graft Quarshie

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Anomaa

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