Coronavirus: Postpone elections if cases, fatalities are at its peak by November – Governance Expert

Governance Expert, Prof. Baffuor Agyemang Duah has said government should consider postponement of elections if the outcome of the pandemic escalates by the end of November.

As unthinkable events unfold over coronavirus, Prof. Baffuor Agyemang Duah contended it would be completely senseless to fulfill constitutional requirement by risking public health.

“If by October, November we’re seeing fatalities from the virus who will think of stepping out to go and vote? So in such a case, I expect all governance institutions to make a decision in the best interest of the nation. I’m saying I can even consider the possibility for elections to either be shifted or postponed depending on the nature of what we’re faced with. So there is a certain common sense that you have to apply. I’m not saying we’re going to do that, after all its premature to even speculate that, but in the event you’re unable to control it and God forbid, we extend to the levels New York, Spain and others are having, it won’t make sense to be holding regular political activities just to fulfill constitutional requirement,” he told sit-in host Akwasi Nsiah on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.5 FM.

Prof. Baffuor Agyemang Duah further argued that the nation is moving into uncharted waters with regards to the virus and hence it is important for the Electoral Commission (EC) to abort any immediate plans of the compilation of a new voters register.

The exercise was initially scheduled for April 18, 2020, but no new date has been announced.

“We had planned to do the registration on the [18th of April] but because of the pandemic, we can’t do it on the 18th so we are observing what is happening around Ghana and the global issue,” the EC’s Director of Electoral Services, Dr. Serebour Quaicoe said told a Press conference in March.

Meanwhile, the Communications Director of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Sammy Gyamfi says President Akufo-Addo was largely driven by political expediency in lifting the Lockdown restrictions “prematurely”.

“It is clearly a politically-motivated decision, calculated to allow the EC the space to undertake its entrenched and illogical determination to compile a new voters’ register for the 2020 general elections and nothing more.