The Electoral Commission has justified the decision to leave out the country’s Coat of Arms and the ballot box in its new logo, which has stirred controversy in the past weeks.

The Coat of Arms and the ballot box were two key elements of the old logo, which the Commission has since April this year abandoned for a new one that has drawn criticism from a section of Ghanaians.

“Why did we remove the Coat of Arms? Because we do not represent the authority of the state,” Chairperson of the Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei explained Tuesday.

She added: “we believe that, even from the research we did, the coat of arms does not speak to the legal and functional independence of the commission. We should not represent the authority of the state”.

Justifying why the ballot box in the old logo was left out in the new one, she said: “we are more than the ballot box. Our mandate is beyond just the ballot box as we’ve explained”

Notwithstanding the many criticism the Commission over the logo, Mrs Osei said “We like it; we picked it; it makes us happy. It reminds us of all the values that we want to bring into our work and where we are going as a Commission.”
Mrs Osei was speaking at an event to launch the Commission’s five-year strategic plan and also to unveil the new direction and outlook of the Commission.

Earlier, the Commission explained the meaning of the new logo, which was given different interpretations when it came out earlier last month.

“The whole identity represents a unified common purpose and vision and demonstrates our independence as an institution,” the Commission explained.

The EC said the circles in the logo represents unity, singular and unified in its purpose which it said is “our democracy”, adding the blue of the circle also represents the stability and independence of the Commission.

“The inward moving arrows reflect all the people of Ghana and equally coming together for the common purpose- the right to select their political leadership,” the Commission added.

The red, gold and green colours, it said, represents Ghana.