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The no nonsense chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan has finally been encircled by the two leading political parties in the country - The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) after defying all the entreaties to call Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting to discuss matters affecting the 2012 general elections. Both NPP and People National Convention (PNC) have written more than twice to Dr. Afari Gyan, asking him to call emergency IPAC meeting but the latter remains defiant insisting that per the mandate given them by the constitution, no group or individuals can subject his outfit to control. NPP in particular is not happy with the formular that has been adopted by the EC to prepare a biometric register for the 2012 elections. The party noted for instance that 2 mega camera that is going to be used to capture the images of potential voters is not best and that the EC should rather go in for 10 mega cameras. NPP is also calling for 1200 mega scanners to take the finger prints of the voters instead of the 500 mega capacity that has been approved. The largest opposition party is equally not happy with the proposal that only the EC should have access to the data storage. The party is calling for a unique code for each of the political parties that would gain them direct access to where the data has been stored. This would enable the parties to know when an opponent enters the storage and what is done there including an input that would be made by the EC itself. Though the fight for this credible biometric register is in the interest of all the political parties, the NDC a major stakeholder has been quiet on the issue raising suspicion that the party is at home with the belligerent posture that has been adopted by the EC. Ahmed Gadzel, an ICT specialist who is monitoring the whole biometric registration on behalf of NDC has however denied that the party was happy with the development going on. According to him NDC has remained quiet because they think NPP was in haste and that it was too early to raise any alarm bell. Ahmed noted that the EC is going to compile a biometric register and not biometric voting and that what should occupy the minds of the political parties now is how to ensure the compilation of a credible register before thinking about others. The ICT specialists who was speaking on TV3 last Saturday told the viewing public that the NDC was not happy with the recent demonstration by the EC on how the biometric registration is going to be conducted but the party decided to stay and watch the proceedings because they knew they would use the appropriate forum to address some of the shortfalls. He agreed with NPP that the capacity of the cameras and scanners for the registration is not the best and that the EC must go in for high performing ones. He noted that some of these problems could be addressed through dialogue and therefore supported the stand of the NPP for EC to call an IPAC meeting for them to meet and iron out the differences. Mr. Asamoah Gyamfi, a member of the NPP communication team who was also on the programme expressed surprise at the attitude that has been adopted by the EC regarding the call for an early IPAC meeting to discuss some of these matters. He noted that the EC has achieved the current feat in the conduct of credible elections in Ghana due to the contributions the political parties have made since 1992. Both Ahmed and Gyamfi however admitted that the EC is within time to conduct the biometric registration and that they as stakeholder are not worried the electoral body is behind time though per their own guidelines the registration should have come on this month. The Chronicle has meanwhile learnt that the Deputy Commissioner of the EC in charge of elections, Dr. David Kanga recently met the political parties in the absence of his boss, Afari-Gyan is currently out of the country where they had a brief discuss on some of the issues that are being raised with a promise to meet the parties gain when Dr. Afari-Gyan returns from his foreign trip. The decision by the EC to compile a biometric register was informed by the reported wide spread double voting during the 2008 election which was the closest in the history of the country. Whilst NDC claimed that there was massive rigging in Ashanti region, the stronghold of NPP the latter also made similar claim against the former in the Volta region, the stranglehold of the now ruling party. Afari-Gyan�s outfit has also stated repeatedly that the voter register is bloated and that there was the need to clean it. Unfortunately to the process to come out with a credible register has been fraught with problems. Whilst the political parties are complaining about the process, one of the companies bidding to carry out the registration has dragged the EC to court complaining about the way and manner the bidding was being conducted. The court hearing the case recently ruled that individual interest should not override that of the state and gave the EC the go ahead to continue with the process to select the final company to execute the job. The plaintiff has however indicated its intention to appeal against the decision. Observers fear that if the threat is carried out, it would put next year�s election in jeopardy since the EC does not have much time at its disposal.