The Convention People’s Party (CPP) has added its voice to the call for an audit of the current voters register.
The Chairperson and leader of the CPP, Madam Samia Yaba Nkrumah, who made the call in an interview in Accra, underscored the need for the current register to be cleaned up, saying, “In view of the controversies the current voters register has generated election year after election year, there is no doubt that we need to do something about it.”
“It has to be cleaned up; we cannot go into the 2016 Election with the old register,” she told the Daily Graphic.
NPP/PPP position Already, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) have called for the register to be cleaned.
The PPP have, for instance, advocated a continuous registration of voters when they reach age 18, while the NPP want a complete clean-up of the register.
Key task facing EC According to the CPP chair, this is going to be one of the key tasks facing the new boss of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei.
She said the recommendation of the Supreme Court judges during the 2012 Election petition alluded to the need for the voters register to be given a second look.
She added that the issue of “no registration no vote” was very effective during the Kumbungu and Talensi by-elections.
She said the whole Ghana was at Talensi and for the votes to drop from 34,000 to 24,000 speaks volumes of the need to take a second look at the register.
According to Madam Samia Nkrumah, before every general election, we must look at the voters register.
2016 Special year She says 2016 is a special year for all Nkrumaists, particularly the CPP, because it is the 50th anniversary (1966-2016) of the overthrow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s First President and the Founder of the CPP.
She disclosed that the party and the People’s National Convention (PNC) would do everything possible to present a common candidate for the 2016 election.
So far, she pointed out, the Ghanaian electorate have only managed to change drivers of the economy (NDC and NPP) but unfortunately, the direction has been the same.
“It is time to change both the driver and the direction, come the 2016 polls,” she postulated and called on the electorate, especially supporters from other political parties, to get involved and support a unified Nkruamaist front to win the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.
She stated that both the CPP and the PNC were ‘walking the talk’ to bring the unity moves into fruition.
CPP/PNC congresses In line with this, she hinted that within the next few months both the PNC and CPP would go for their respective congresses and hopefully “we will synchronise them such that the congresses happen at the same time and that is when we will announce the ground-breaking feat of a unified Nkrumaist front.”
When we are unified, the CPP chair added, “you can see better results as it happened during the Kumbungu and Talensi by-elections.”
Sacrifices and compromises Along the way towards unity, Madam Nkrumah pointed out, there would be sacrifices and compromises, but that must be done in such a manner that would not affect the Nkrumaist brand and the 2016 election campaign.
“We must be willing to do merger in stages as a last resort, rather than abandoning the whole project,” she stated.
In her view, “we can begin with an electoral alliance in 2016 and work towards a full merger thereafter. We do not want any conditions before we merge and our commitment to unity must be irreversible and devoid of any hitches.
“We need the support of every Nkrumaist sympathiser.”
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