Five Political Parties Endorse EC’s New CI | Politics

Five political parties without representation in Parliament have approved the new Constitutional Instrument (CI) proposed by the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana for the 2024 general elections.

The Political Parties namely, Liberal Party of Ghana, LPG, Grand Consolidation Party GCPP, All Peoples Congress APC, National Democratic Party NDP and Peoples National Convention PNC in a joint press conference said the content of the new CI was fully discussed. in various Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) Meetings and accepted by all political parties.

According to political parties, there is a consensus on the new CI between all political parties and the electoral commission, and wonder why other political parties are not opposed.

“Negotiations for a new Constitutional Instrument to introduce the National Identification card as proof of identity to apply for voter registration began anywhere in October 2021. It was preceded by a 2-day retreat of the Electoral Commission held at the Alisa hotel in April to discuss the 2020. Presidential and parliamentary elections, ” said the party.

The party stated that the Electoral Commission has written to 24 political parties to inform them to attend the IPAC meeting on November 24, 2021, to discuss the new CI draft, which is attached to the letter.

“We all participated in many deliberations and meetings, which included civil society organizations for almost a year and decided to accept the use of KTP as proof of identification for anyone who requests registration as a voter,” the statement said. said.

“Friends from the media, between November 2018 and August 2022, the Electoral Commission created a Sub-committee of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) to discuss the draft CI on Voter Registration … which was invited did not happen, only for the party to be informed in the month August 2022 that the proposed CI is ready for presentation to the Parliament. In other words, the NDC has been excluded from the process of preparing the CI”.

“We want to inform the general public, especially the NDC supporters who are in large numbers that their leadership is doing damage,” the party said.

They argued that CI has been open discussions in IPAC for almost a year and every party or representative of political parties, and civil society organizations have the opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

“Therefore, we are using this media to call Parliament to ensure the new CI is put in place to help ensure the integrity and credibility of voter registration and reduce chaos in registration centers. The lives of voters are important and we must protect them and ensure agitation is reduced to a minimum,” said the party.