2012 General Elections To Be Held November 7

The Al-Hajj newspaper is reporting that the 2012 general elections in Ghana would be held on November 7 as against the usual December 7 since the inception of the Fourth Republican Constitution in 1992.

The paper quoted sources versed in the workings of the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) to have confided in them that “the new date of November 7 will be the solution of the perennial transitional challenges that the country faces any time there is an election and especially a change of power from a democratically elected government to another. ”

Again, governments which are lucky to be re-elected to serve a second term of four years would also get ample time to put a winsome team together before they are sworn in, it reported.

The Al-Hajj has gathered that though the new date for the elections have been shifted one month behind, the swearing in of the President will always be on the 7th of January. This would be two clear months after the elections.

According to the sources, the decision to accept these changes to the political calendar of the country is the result of the numerous petitions presented to the CRC in favour of changes of the date.

The sources said, the Commission was inundated by petition to change the date of the elections and most of the petitioners are in favour of November 7.

The Al-Hajj’s newspaper further painstaking research has revealed that majority of the proposals submitted on one of the 25 most popular issues tabled by the CRC after its in-depth analysis of the over 85,000 submissions received are in favour of the change of the date.

All the political parties are said also to be solidly in favour of the change of the date so as to be convenient for whoever wins an elections to get ample time to form a competent team to govern the nation.

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), which has also been pushing for the passage of the Presidential Transition Bill in order to ensure that the next transition process is devoid of the acrimony as characterized the previous transitions in 2001 and 2009 proposed to the Constitution Review Commission a change in the voting date from December 7 to November 7 to allow for a longer transition period.

This in their opinion would give a breathing space for the incoming government, especially in the event of a run-off, as happened in the 2000 and 2008 elections.