Kwame Sanaa-Poku Jantuah, a stalwart of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) has warned the Electoral Commission (EC) not to instigate anarchy with its propositions. His comment come on the back of the Chairperson of the Commission proposing a 2-hour reduction of the close of polls from 5pm to 3pm.
The Electoral Commission has justified the decision to shift the closing time of voting from 5:00pm to 3:00pm during the upcoming 2024 general elections.
Jean Adukwei Mensa, Chair of the Commission, has emphasised that this adjustment aims to facilitate the transparent and orderly collation of votes by electoral officers in broad daylight.
The development, which many say would not auger well for the elections, should be discussed by all stakeholders according to Kwame Jantuah.
He explained how the EC insistence on the usage of the Ghana Card as the sole identity for the voter registration exercise for instance, nearly cost a lot of people their civil responsibility for lacking the document.
“This is not a party issue. This is a national issue we have to discuss and make sure that we do it in such a way that everybody is clear,” he said on the New Day on TV3 Friday, December 15, 2023.
On the Ghana card matter, he asked “how many people have Ghana Card? She should be very careful she doesn’t cause mayhem. What is the issue? The issue is the counting at night? Make it possible for counting to happen at any given time that elections end. That is what she should be concentrating on and not trying to disenfranchise voters.”
He also called for the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to be equipped to carry out education to the public rather than reducing the closing time of the polls to 3pm.
“Give NCCE a lot of money to start training and educating people that ‘don’t wait last minute to go and vote, as much as possible, get there early’,”
Kwame Jantuah also suggested to the EC to rather draft a Constitutional Instrument to Parliament to change the date of the general elections from December 7 to the first Saturday of December in an election year.
“Maybe what the EC should do, should probably send a C.I. to Parliament and indicate that elections should be held first Saturday of the month of December instead of 7 because 7 can fall on a weekday but if it’s first Saturday, at least not a lot of people work on Saturdays and employers will be prepared to give leverage for voting.
“Maybe that is what we should be looking at instead of saying that you drastically would change from 5pm to 3pm. Even if we want to try it, move it an hour to say, 4 pm, to give people the time,” he told Roland Walker, host of the show.
Expressing further his reservations with the proposal, he noted people can rush up to the polling centre at the close of polls and would still be mandated to vote, pushing the time to late in the night which would inadvertently defeat the purpose for the changes.
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