The Institute for Democratic Governance has described the existing political atmosphere in Ghana in relation to plans by the Electoral Commission to compile a new register of voters for the 2020 general elections, as “dangerous to the general health, peace and security, democratic stability and economic prosperity” of the nation.”

According to the institute, the country needs a different kind of democratic politics than what is being offered by the two leading political parties in the country currently, in order to avoid electoral violence in the 2020 polls.

In a statement released by the institute and signed by its Senior Research Fellow and Head, Advocacy and Institutional Relations, Kwesi Jonah on Monday, 26 May 2020, IDEG noted: “Objective observers would realise by now that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the kind of politics being played by the two major political parties is dangerous to the general health, peace and security, democratic stability and economic prosperity of the Ghanaian nation.”

The statement continued: “This new context, in which the 2020 elections will occur, calls for a different kind of democratic politics than the two parties are offering.”

It added: “A more accommodating and selfless driven politics based on a greater understanding of the need for unity of purpose, political co-operation and love for the nation Ghana, is what we expect of the two political parties in particular.”

It indicated: “The inter-party conflict over the ideal register for the December 2020 elections has intensified the political polarisation of the nation and driving it toward potential electoral violence and constitutional crisis” and disclosed that “if this trend continues, it could cause the breakdown of multiparty democracy in the Fourth Republic.”

In IDEG’s opinion, “to turn this undesirable situation around, we urge the two major parties, in particular, and the political parties, in general, to now present alternative proposals to the EC on the basis of which the stalement over the compilation of the new voter registration for the December 2020 election will be amicably and expeditiously resolved.”