THE EC’S INCREDIBLE ASHANTI REGION VOTERS’ REGISTER

… The multiple figures

Despite the strenuous efforts being made by the Electoral Commission itself and sections of the media to rubbish the publication of the over bloated voters’ register in the Ashanti region, by ‘the Ghana Palaver’, further painstaking investigations conducted by our Political Desk on the matter have unearthed the existence of marked differences in the figures released by the Head Office of the Electoral Commission in Accra and those obtained from the Commission’s offices in the Ashanti region and some districts.

The multiple figures for one such constituency – Ejura-Sekyedumase in the Ashanti region are collated below for readers to draw their own conclusions.

It would be recalled that following the exposure of the over bloated voters’ register in the Ashanti region about two weeks ago, by ‘the Ghana Palaver’, the Electoral Commission convened a hurried meeting of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee(IPAC) at which the Commission issued what it called authentic figures for the voters’ register in the Ashanti region to the various political parties.

Since then, the Ghana Palaver has been in possession of documents from the Ashanti regional offices of the Electoral Commission and another from the offices of the Commission at EJURA-SEKYEDUMASE constituency in the Ashanti region. The figures from the Ashanti regional offices of the EC and those from Ejura-Sekyedumase constituency, as contained in these documents in addition to the ones contained on the CD-ROM issued by the Electoral Commission to the National Democratic Congress(NDC) and the hard copy of the same document obtained by ‘the Ghana Palaver’ from the Electoral Commission are analyzed as below for our readers to form their own judgments.

SOURCE OF DOCUMENTS : THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF GHANA( EC. )/NDC

TYPE OF DOCUMENTS: REGISTERED VOTERS’REGISTER AS AT UPDATED IN 2006

CONSTITUENCY TOTAL NO. SOURCE DATE OF ISSUE
OF VOTERS

1. EJURA-SEKYE-DUMASE 42,191 EC. HQ. IPAC OF 04/03/08 4TH MARCH,2008
2. EJURA-SEKYEDUMASE 39,613 EC. ASHANTI REGION SEPTEMBER, 2006

3. EJURA-SEKYEDUMASE 42,091 EC. EJURA-SEKYEDUMASE SEPTEMBER, 2006 DISTRICT/CONSTITUENCY

4. EJURA-SEKYEDUMASE 84,182 EC. HQ. OBTAINED BY 25TH FEB. 2008

5. EJURA-SEKYEDUMASE 84,182 CD-ROM OBTAINED BY NDC FROM EC.HQ

**NOTE : EC. – ELECTORAL COMMISIION OF GHANA The differences in these documents all of which originated from the same Electoral Commission must be disturbing to all Ghanaians of goodwill, for, they portend real danger for our democracy. This situation must have unnerved many Ghanaians at a time we are all pinning our hopes on the our Electoral Commission as a credible trust worthy institution capable of conducting a transparent and fair elections, the results of which would be acceptable to all Ghanaians of all political persuasions.

For those who might have thought that the Ghana Palaver had been mischievous in publishing those outrageous ‘unbelievable’ figures originating from the CD-ROM issued by the Electoral Commission to the NDC, and the hard copy obtained from the Electoral Commission by ourselves, they better readjust their thinking. As you would find in the tabulation above, the figures represent the number of registered voters in the Ejura-Sekyedumase constituency in the Ashanti Region. The potential for cheating resulting in conflict in an election in this particular constituency is very great because of the fact that different parties may be holding one or the other of these documents at a particular time.

The sanctity of the electoral process is the bedrock of democracy worldwide. In our circumstances, we are looking for 50% + 1 of valid votes to elect a President or a Parliamentarian or an Assemblyman. That is the reason why these conflicting figures must be a source of worry for all well meaning Ghanaians. The above situation demonstrates amply to all Ghanaians that the Electoral Commission has a long way to go in producing a clean and trust worthy voters register which could be fully trusted and acceptable to all the parties and all stake holders in the political stability and the future well being of our very dear country.

More importantly this incident as brought to the public domain by ‘the Ghana Palaver’, must have been a God sent blessing in disguise. For, it affords the Electoral Commission the golden opportunity to thoroughly clean its Information Technology(IT) department, so that the Mafia within its ranks who alone could have the been responsible for the outrageous figures issued to the NDC and ‘the Ghana Palaver’, which if they had been left undetected could have led to massive cheating and rigging of the elections.

The Electoral Commission should not shy away from engaging the services of outsiders with in-depth knowledge of IT systems to help them clean the system and put in place such safeguards as would make it impossible for the rogues among them to wreck havoc on our democracy.

We are all witnesses to the kind of damage dissatisfaction with electoral results could cause and have caused in many countries around the world. Luckily, the voters register will be re-opened in March and May this year, and that must offer the timely opportunity for the Electoral Commission, all political parties, Civil Society, the donor community and indeed all of us with a stake in the political, social, economic, and democratic stability of our country to lend a hand in making sure that our forth-coming elections would be a further consolidation of our collective march towards a more mature democracy.

The denial game being played by the Electoral Commission would not help us in our quest for a fair and transparent elections based on a clean voters register country wide. Electoral Commission please wake up.