The United Kingdom chapter of the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said the Electoral Commission is incapable of implementing the controversial Representation of the People Amendment Law (ROPAL), Act (699), particularly for this year’s polls in November.
Speaking to Citi News, the Chairman of the UK NDC Chapter, Kofi Kwakye, said, “I don’t see Electoral Commission being able to implement it [ROPAL].”
"Kofi Kwakye further said the Electoral Commission “will run into a lot of troubles if they try to implement it, if you limit it to a few countries, Ghanaians in other small countries like Suriname and Papua New Guinea will also complain, they will ask why the voting is not extended to them. I don’t think we have the resources to do this.”
A US based advocacy group, Progressive Alliance Movement (PAM), has filed a lawsuit at the High Court in Accra, seeking to compel the Electoral Commission to immediately implement the Representation of the People Amendment Law, Act 699.
Kofi Kwakye who is against the law told Citi News, “I don’t think it’s a good policy, I think that that the electoral right should be extended to people who have been brought by government and who work for government; for those of us who came on our own accord, I don’t see the point of government bringing the vote to us where we are. I think it’s a very dangerous thing we are doing,” he stated.
Ghana’s Parliament passed ROPAL in 2005 to enable Ghanaians living abroad to vote in national elections.
The Electoral Commission has not been able to implement the law since it was passed. President John Mahama two years ago, urged Ghanaians in the diaspora to make a strong case to the EC for the implementation of the law.
While speaking at a meeting with the Ghanaian community in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the United States of America in 2014, President Mahama said the directive issued by the Supreme Court in its ruling on the 2012 Presidential Election Petition for the EC to make reforms in its operations, provided a good opportunity for Ghanaians living abroad to forcefully put their case before the commission to extend voting rights to them.
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