Let’s collaborate effectively for peaceful elections - EC

Alhaji Sulley Amadu, EC Deputy Chairman in charge of Finance and Administration has appealed to the media and members of the political parties to collaborate effectively with the EC to ensure transparent, credible and violence-free elections in December.

He said the lack of collaboration and the over enthusiasm to win power, as well as the media’s lack of understanding on electoral matters were some of the factors that led to violence during elections.

Alhaji Amadu gave the advice in Tamale on Monday at a day’s capacity building workshop for political parties aimed at enhancing the integrity of the electoral process.

The programme was on the theme: “Enhancing the credibility of the 2012 elections” and was attended by representatives of all the registered political parties.

The DFID sponsored the programme with KAB Governance Consult (KGC) doing the facilitation to ensure free, fair, transparent and credible elections in December.

Alhaji Amadu observed that the political parties’ inability to get knowledgeable agents at the polling and collation centres were some of the factors leading to agitations during elections.

He said other factors included the enthusiasm of political leadership to win power at all cost and the zealousness of the media to report electoral issues without cross-checking their facts. He called for effective collaboration with the EC to achieve the desired electoral results.

He said the EC was committed to ensuring that the 2012 elections became an improvement over the previous ones adding that, it was important that Ghanaians learnt and respected the country’s electoral laws.

He said the recent Biometric Voter Registration exercise captured more than 15,000 electorates who indulged in multiple registrations and that the EC would apply the necessary electoral laws against the culprits.

Mr. Sylvester Kanyi, Northern Regional Director of the EC, said the 2012 elections were crucial for Ghanaians and appealed to the media and representatives of the political parties to play the respective roles responsibly to ensure violence-free elections.

He said the political parties were the lead collaborators in ensuring violence-free elections and stressed the need for the political parties to have in-house training for their agents to ensure that they stayed away from violence.**