The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has renewed its concerns with the plan by the Electoral Commission to make the Ghana card the sole identification for the registration of voters.
This comes on the heels of the confirmation of the electoral management body to abolish the guarantor system for the use of the Ghana card for its continuous voter registration exercise.
General Secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, in his reaction to the development insisted that the move remains a calculated tool to disenfranchise its members.
“If the EC is going to use a system to disenfranchise about three million Ghanaians [who do not have Ghana card], does that result in a free, fair and transparent elections because right from the word go, those people have been cut off. The intention is to disenfranchise NDC people so they [NPP] win the elections that is why they are claiming to break the eight.”
The EC has announced sweeping reforms to voter registration and voting, two years before the next general elections.
These will affect source documents for voter registration and the voter ID system, and will take effect with the maturation of a yet-to-be laid constitutional instrument.
The Commission while debunking claims that the Ghana Card will be used as Voter Identification in 2024, insisted the Ghana Card will be the sole document for limited and continuous voter registrations.
EC believes the guarantor system is fraught with many challenges and could no longer provide a secure system of voter registration for the country.
Johnson Asiedu Nketiah believes the EC cannot be trusted with these new electoral amendments.
“This is a position the EC has taken and we have been fighting it. I believe that our position makes sense and the EC’s communication did not convince Ghanaians that, they are on the right track and we believe that we shall overcome it.”
“If the argument by the EC is that, they are not going to touch the existing register, how will the new names go and clean the old register? It means that, they have something hidden they do not want Ghanaians to know”, he said on Eyewitness News.
With the difficulties associated with the acquisition of the Ghana card, the EC has urged the National Identification Authority to accelerate the printing of Ghana cards to enable prospective voters to register to vote.