The public can’t dictate to us, we’ll work with our plan for a credible poll – EC

The Director of Elections at the Electoral Commission (EC) Dr Serebour Quarcoo, has said the elections management body will work with its own laid down plans and programmes ahead of this year’s elections.

Dr Quarcoo said the 1992 constitution empowers the EC to undertake activities including the compilation of a new voter’s register to ensure that elections are free, fair and credible.

He, therefore, said the EC will not be swayed by what some people think is best for Ghana because “at the end of the day people will judge us based on the decision we took and not what people thought about us.”

Dr Quarcoo’s comment comes after a group of Ghanaians including the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) called on the electoral management body to abrogate plans to compile a new register for the December elections.

The Managing Editor of the Daily Insight newspaper, Mr Kwesi Pratt has said Ghanaians will reject the results of the general elections in December if any individual or political party uses any hanky-panky means to win power.

Mr Pratt and a group of civil society organisations including the NDC are kicking against the new voter roll.

They say the move is a wasteful venture and can throw the nation into chaos.

Addressing a public forum on the new voter register in Accra on Thursday, 9 January 2020, Mr Pratt said: “Whatever we do, the 2020 elections is an important phase in our struggle. If that election is conducted freely and fairly, we must accept whoever is declared winner, but if that election is conducted in the ‘conie-conie’ way we are beginning to see, we’ll not accept the result.



“Comrades and friends, this is not rabble-rousing, this is upholding the Constitution because the Constitution enjoins all of us to make sure that nobody employs any hanky-panky way in assuming power in this country, that’s a constitutional injunction”.

But Dr Quarcoo told Kwabena Prah Jnr (The Don) on Ghana Yen som on Accra 100.5FM that “The EC will go ahead with the plans to compile a new register.”

“We have our plans and programmes, people can decide to agree or disagree but we believe our plans are good for Ghana‘s elections.

“The constitution gives us the mandate to compile a new register and, so, we will go ahead. At the end of the day people will judge us based on the decision that we took and not what people thought about us so we’ll work with our plan and programme and not what people think.

“If what some people are calling for won’t help us, we won’t work with it,” he added.



Rejoinder: Reacting to the story, the Electoral Commission stated that even though it’s independence is enshrined in Article 46 of the 1992 constitution, it has consultations with various stakeholders such as political parties and the media in order to bring democracy to the doorstep of all Ghanaians, as such the above report is false.