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The National Coordinator, Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), Albert Kofi Arhin, has advised that towards the conduct of the December polls, the National Election Security Task Force should constantly engage all key stakeholders, including the political parties, on security arrangements to bolster stakeholder confidence and trust in election security.
This advice comes on the heels of the just-ended voter registration exercise recording pockets of violence at various registration centres, as well as 16 percent unauthorised persons found on the new register, he observed.
He stated that failure to enforce the rule of law would erode confidence in the security agencies and the rule of law.
Mr Arhin, in a CODEO third preliminary report on the biometric voter registration exercise by the Electoral Commission, said at the M/A J.H.S New Tafo registration center in Abuakwa North in the Eastern Region for example, unauthorised persons prevented some applicants from registering on the basis of non-residence.
According to Mr Arhin, although the Coalition commends the EC and the general public for the generally smooth mass registration exercise over the past six weeks, it, nevertheless, “condemns all acts of intimidation, harassment and use of violence which took place during the exercise.”
By this, he called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Ghana Police Service, working with the Attorney General (AG), to act expeditiously to complete all investigations, including the violent incidents in Banda, which resulted in the death of one young man, as well as the incident in Awutu Senya East in the Central Region, and in Dormaa West in the Bono Region.
“Persons found culpable in various criminal breaches of the law should be prosecuted and sanctioned in accordance with the laws of Ghana. CODEO urges the police administration to share updates of these investigations with the Ghanaian public to foster confidence in the security agencies, and also serve [a] as deterrent against future incidents of this nature…” he urged.
A word of caution was also extended to all the political parties to desist from the use of incendiary language that unnecessarily polarises the country along ethnic and extremely partisan lines, as this can lead to dire consequences for the country in the short to long term.
He added that CODEO believes that stakeholders can raise genuine concerns about the electoral process without necessarily using such polarising language.
CODEO urges the EC to re-open registration in specific areas, where people who had made themselves available for registration could not do so, adding that during the mop-up exercise some applicants’ biometric details and photographs could not be captured.
The post CODEO calls on police to build stakeholders’ confidence appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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