Holding prez and parl. polls separately ‘haram’ – Boahen

The Deputy General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Obiri Boahen, has said the Electoral Commission (EC) should promptly do away with the idea of holding the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections on different days.

Both polls have been held on the same day since 1996 after the 1992 presidential elections to restore democratic rule in Ghana and usher in the fourth republic. In 1992, the presidential ballot was held ahead of the legislative, with the NPP’s presidential candidate losing out to the National Democratic Congress’ Jerry John Rawlings. The NPP cited irregularities in that poll, calling the outcome a “stolen verdict”. The party subsequently boycotted the parliamentary election. Both elections have since been held on the same day partly to avert another boycott and to save time and costs.

The EC, racing against time to get the legal backing to bring forward the election date from December 7 to November 7, announced on Wednesday, May 18 that it was considering the idea of holding the presidential and parliamentary ballots on different days, as it did in 1992.

But Mr Boahen, in a reaction on Accra News on Wednesday said it would be “haram” for the EC to contemplate that. He said the election management body should not even consider that idea as it would hark back to the disputed 1992 election.

The lawyer, who would not even be drawn into a discussion on the rationale for such an arrangement, told Nana Agyen Barimah: “The EC must be joking. Nobody should ever dream of such a thing. They should not even consider it. Nobody should dream of such a thing.”

“We were in Ghana and witnessed what happened in ’92. If they are testing the waters for people’s reactions, then they should dare not. It is haram.”

But his counterpart in the governing NDC, George Lawson, said if the EC got the legal backing for the 2016 polls to be held in November, the party would comply.

“It’s about the law. If the law says this or that we’ll just abide by it. But until then, it’s December 7,” he concluded