Dr Vladimir Antwi-Danso, the Dean of the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFCSC), says the Electoral Commission needs protection from political parties and the citizenry.
“EC is the main prop of democracy and if we derail it, we will be in a bad state. Political parties that have issues regarding their work must find a better and diplomatic way to communicate to the Commission and help it to improve on its work,” he said.
Dr Antwi-Danso, addressing the media in Accra, said it was natural for political parties to engage in contestation but in doing so care must be taken not compromise the EC.
He scored the Commission high marks in the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections and called for support from the populace for the Commission.
“Within 38 days amid COVID-19 they successfully compiled voters register, bought new devices, employed effective technology in the process and voting was smooth,” he noted.
Dr Antwi-Danso said all the innovations were the improvement over the 2016 elections, which was saddled with many problems.
“Yes, there are infractions in every election even that of the United States of America so was that of Ghana in 2020. We need to talk about it and share ideas on how to make our EC perfect. But to contradict the Commission at every turn is unacceptable,” he said.
Dr Antwi-Danso said it was wrong to blame the EC for the death of the seven persons during the elections explaining that the Commission’s mandate was to conduct elections while the security services were mandated to provide security.
“The security officials have their mandate to help the EC if it so happened that the security agencies did not follow their standard procedure then EC cannot be blamed,” he said.
“We need to understand constitutionalism and institutionalism and their mandates. Do we understand the Electoral Commission? If we do, then we will know when to help cause a change and when we are making a mockery of them. Beyond that we are sowing the seed for chaos,” he stated.
Dr Antwi-Danso asked members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to bury their differences and go back to the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC).
The EC held an IPAC meeting to review its performance in the 2020 general election, however, the NDC did not show up at the meeting.
Source: GNA
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