We need intensive public education to prevent people from voting for late Akua Donkor – Election Watch Ghana

Election Watch Ghana has urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to launch a massive public education campaign to prevent registered voters from voting for the late Madam Akua Donkor, the Ghana Freedom Party's presidential candidate.

The call comes after the Electoral Commission announced that all votes cast in the name of the late female politician would be rejected.

The EC's decision is based on the fact that the presidential election ballots have already been printed.

Mark Ewusi Arko, Convener of Election Watch Ghana, said in an interview on Nyankonton Mu Nsem on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM that the best approach was to exclude her from ballot printing and bring in a new person.

"But unfortunately, that could not happen, and the EC's decision is not bad. Others had expected the law to provide guidance on what to do. But the framers of the Constitution did not capture that, so going forward, we must find a way to deal with it."

He suggested a constitutional review on this issue because the EC decided to treat votes for Akua Donkor as rejected since the Constitution is silent on the subject. Moving forward, he emphasised the need to identify any unforeseen events that may arise and make decisions based on the Constitution.

He mentioned that some proposed removing names, but the EC's excuse was that they had already printed about 90% of the ballot papers and that reprinting the ballots would be difficult given the number of days until the elections.

He then proposed public education so Ghanaians would know that the late Akua Donkor was not in the race, allowing them to consider other candidates contesting in the presidential election.

Arko went on to state that this may certainly have an impact on the entire election but stressed the need to intensify public education so that voters will not vote for her.

"There are those who had planned to vote for Akua Donkor, but she is dead, and so these persons may be devastated.

"The current leaders of the party can also whip their members in line and throw their support to any other political party if that is what they want to do. The situation may have negative implications, but it would also depend on how the party will address it."