Ayariga, Akpaloo exchange blows at a meeting over new voters' register

Two politicians exchanged blows at Ghana’s Electoral Commission during a crunch meeting over the compilation of a new voter’s register ahead of the 2020 elections.

The Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting ended in a stalemate after five hours on Thursday.

The meeting saw a presidential candidate hopeful, Mr Kofi Apaloo, who is the leader and founder of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) trade blows with the general secretary of the All People’s Congress (APC).

The police had to call for more personnel in order to restore calm from the chaos that was generated by the two politicians who are on both ends of the voters’ register debate.

“There were exchange of blows; the leader of the LPG had to carry a chair [and] by the timely intervention of Archbishop Palmer-Buckle, there would have been bloodshed,” NDC deputy general secretary told Accra-based Starr FM.

The Inter-Party Resistance Against New Voter Register (IPRAN), has petitioned former President Jerry John Rawlings to seek his counsel in its quest to stop the Electoral Commission from compiling a new register ahead of the 2020 elections.

A delegation of the coalition, led by Peoples National Convention (PNC) National Chairman, Bernard Mornah, who met the former President at his office on Tuesday, said the Electoral Commission’s “refusal to listen to wise counsel particularly from persons who have participated in the electoral process for a very long time has led to very painful but wrong decisions”.

The coalition said while the Electoral Commission may have a mandate to compile a new register, “The mandate must be within reasonable limits. The mandate of leadership is vested in the people and the Ghanaian people are saying that apply some economic reasoning. We are telling the Electoral Commission that if it’s not broken, don’t fix it!”

Detailing the group’s stance against the Electoral Commission’s proposal, the PNC Chairman said during the last local government elections there was a 0.6 failure rate with the use of the existing biometric equipment and questioned why based on such a high-efficiency rate, the Commission would wish to replace equipment and also do away with 17 million names in the voter database.