Politics of Friday, 24 July 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

EC cannot do anything about violence during elections – Political Analyst

File photo: EC Ghana logo File photo: EC Ghana logo

Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Dr Kingsley Adjei, has stated that it is not in the power of the Electoral Commission (EC) to control violence during the 2020 general elections.

Reacting to the reports of violence during the NPP primaries and the on-going voters registration exercise and its implications towards the 2020 general elections, Dr Adjei clarified that the EC can only be fair, but they will have no control over the behavior of Ghanaians during the December polls.

“The EC can only be fair but they cannot erase the things that are happening. Not until we remove these hurdles, we will continue to have political vigilantism, and violence in our elections,” the Political Analyst said in an interview with GhanaWeb on July 22, 2020.

Dr Kingsley Adjei further averred that the youth have become a tool for political vigilantism for both the NDC and the NPP because of mass unemployment in the society, adding that, both parties have not done much to tackle the menace of unemployment.

“Since 1992, both parties (NDC AND NPP) that have ruled us in this country have not been able to provide jobs for the youth, and there have been an increase in the youth population since 1992. So once they are not doing anything, they finish university, they finish SHS, they finish all the other educational institutions but they are not working so they become vulnerable to the exploit of the political leaders who have all the money and can hire their services”

“Indeed this is what happened in DR Congo, the youth are not working and they are finding it very difficult to make a living,” he lamented.