GPCC congratulates Ghanaians for a successful voter registration exercise

The Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) has congratulated Ghanaians for ensuring a successful voter registration exercise.

It has also lauded the Electoral Commission (EC) for organizing the 2020 mass voter registration exercise efficiently amidst the ravaging coronavirus pandemic.

A statement signed and issued in Accra by Reverend Emmanuel Teimah Barrigah, General Secretary, GPCC, and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said the technical and operational aspects of the exercise was successful in spite of the initial over-crowding, some isolated cases of violence and the non-observance of the COVID-19 protection protocols.

It commended Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and faith-based organisations for the watchdog role during the exercise.

“We wish to give credit to Ghanaian voters who braved all odds to go out of their homes to register amidst the danger of the coronavirus pandemic. But for their active participation in the exercise, the nation would not have achieved such large success,” it said.

“The needless tension created by the unusual deployment of these security forces were avoidable if there were prior stakeholder engagement and adequate flow of information to the people along the borders,” it said.

It noted that even though issues of national security and the decision thereof were the prerogative and discretion of the government and the security agencies, evolving dynamics of modern security, especially in the advent of human security imposed a responsibility on the government and state actors to recognize the important role of the citizenry in a people-centred security structure.

The statement called on the EC to ride on the back of the successful registration exercise and re-engage all key stakeholders of the electoral process.

It further called on all political parties to eschew all forms of violent tendencies ahead of the general elections by embarking on electoral campaigns devoid of insults, character assassination of opponents and all vices.

It appealed to the youth to commit themselves to a violence-free political campaign period by refusing to be used by unpatriotic politicians as instruments of violence.