‘Yenpini’ demo: No one can flout the will of the people – Ayariga to EC

The supreme leader of the All Peoples Congress, Hassan Ayariga has told the Electoral Commission to expect brave resistance from Ghanaians if the commission acts in a way that subverts the will of citizens.

Mr. Ayariga made these statement when he was addressing thousands of protestors who joined the inter party resistance against the compilation of a new voters register at the Jubilee Park in Kumasi.

The “yempene” demonstration took Kumasi by storm as crowds clad in red matched from the Aboabo School park through principal streets of Asokore Mampong, the central business district of Kumasi and ended at the Jubilee Park where the opposing political parties mounted stands to hold a mini rally.

The political parties notably swarm by the National Democratic Congress maintained that the Electoral Commission’s plan to procure a new voter information management system alongside the compilation of a new voters register is unjustifiable, misplaced and a waste of the tax payers money.

Mounting the podium, Mr Ayariga insisted, “Ghanaians will not work with an Electoral Commission which is not willing to work with political parties and the voters.” “You cannot flout the will of the people to your own satisfaction. The mere fear that your system will crush does not mean that we should get a new voters register.”

In what appears to be a departure from the argument of the resistance group for complete shelving of the idea; Mr Ayariga however suggested that the Electoral Commission rather procure a new elections information management system to hold the EC’s biometric data.

“If your system will crush; go and get a new system and transfer the data from one place to another. If you buy a new mobile phone and you want to transfer your data, you don’t throw away everything. You only need to transfer the data from one mobile phone to the other mobile phone.”

However, this is the second demonstration of the interparty resistance against the compilation of a new voters register after it held its first demonstration in the Northern Regional Capital Tamale.