‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it— Afriyie Ankrah kicks against EC’s reform proposal
Director of Elections for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Elvis Afriyie Ankrah has kicked against the Electoral Commission’s (EC) proposal to close polls at 3 pm in subsequent general elections, saying it has not learnt from its mistakes.
According to him, the change in time will deprive many Ghanaians of their civic right and responsibility and expressed the need for the citizenry to reject the proposal and maintain the initial time.
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Addressing the press in Accra on Thursday, Mr Afriyie Ankrah described the proposal of EC as baffling and mind-blogging.
“The NDC finds the proposal by the Jean Mensah-led EC to change the closing time of polls from 5 pm to 3 pm in 2024 baffling and mind-boggling. Since the 1992 elections, polls have always closed at 5 pm. This has worked perfectly without any challenges whatsoever.
“It, therefore, beggars belief that the EC would want to change this time-tested arrangement and go for a poorly thought-through alternative which is bound to disenfranchise eligible voters and create needless problems for our electoral system,” he added.
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Touching on why the 3 pm proposal was not a good initiative, Mr Afriyie Ankrah stated that the country has been reporting undue delay in the delivery of electoral materials to polling stations and since those challenges had not been resolved the country could not consider change in time.
He therefore entreated the citizenry to reject the proposal since the Commission led by Mrs Jean Mensa failed to honour its promise to announce the 2020 election results within 24 hours.
“Ghanaians will recall how a similar hasty decision by the EC to declare results within 24 hours after the closure of polls in the 2020 elections failed miserably and led to the rushed declaration of a patently flawed results that yielded a percentage aggregate of more than 100%, by the Returning Officer, Mrs Jean Adukwei Mensah. One would have thought that Jean Mensah would have learnt the right lessons by now but that appears not to be the case.
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“Friends from the media, our position on this proposal is simple. The current arrangement of closing polls at 5 pm has worked perfectly in seven (7) general elections in this country and does not require any fixing. Like the Chairperson said in her speech, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’” Mr Afriyie Ankrah added.
Source: www.spotonnews.net