LAWS ON BIOMETRIC, CONSTITUENCIES NOT READY

The 2012 general elections may be heading for disaster. The Electoral Commission (EC) is racing against time to submit to Parliament the Regulations on the conduct of this year's elections, since the current Regulations, passed in 1996, do not cater for the changes in our electoral system, including biometric registration and electronic voter verification.

The Constitutional Instrument (C. I.) for the elections is required to be placed in Parliament for 21 SITTING DAYS before coming into force. With Parliament due to rise on July 27, till end of September, the EC is in a very tight corner to get its regulations ready for the nomination of candidates for the Presidential and Parliamentary elections in September and for the elections on December, 7. As if that is not enough load and major headache, the decision to create 45 new constituencies few months before the general elections without the required regulations is making stakeholders, particularly political parties and civil society, anxious and jittery. This situation also requires Parliamentary approval after 21 SITTING DAYS, but the EC is yet to submit to Parliament the Instrument on the 45 new seats. The EC is not bold enough to retract the premature statement on the creation of 45 new constituencies, but appears to be admitting quietly that the earliest it can officially create constituencies will be October, 2012. How the EC expects political parties to elect polling station and constituency officers, who will elect Parliamentary candidates after October, when nominations for the general elections have been opened, is the unprecedented challenge Ghana faces in its twenty years of uninterrupted constitutional rule.

The EC is mandated to review the boundaries of Constituencies after seven years or within twelve months of the publication of the final census figures, which publication was made at the end of May, 2012. The EC therefore has up to the end of May, 2013 to review the boundaries without necessarily creating constituencies.

But, as has been the practice, based on EC's own interpretation of the law, including relying on the government to create Districts, which is very contentious and subject of litigation, the EC is going ahead with the creation of 45 constituencies literally less than two months before the December, 7 elections. This unprecedented and undemocratic situation has affected the political parties, especially the NDC, who are still waiting for the coming into force of the Regulations on the creation of constituencies to elect parliamentary candidates in some twenty constituencies whose primaries were put on hold. The political parties however are divided as key persons with interests in the creation of the constituencies as well as those who want to be candidates are not involved in the major electoral, constitutional battle against the EC. The NDC has been scheming through the creation of Districts to have more constituencies in their favour.

It is understood that the Supreme Court may be called upon to rule on this issue again regarding when the creation should take effect. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that the creation of constituencies announced in 2003 should apply in the 2004 elections.

In many countries, like Kenya, elections cannot be held in constituencies which have been created less than 12 months before the general elections. Such new constituencies are required to wait for the next elections.