Election 2024: EC shelves use of Ghana Card as sole identity document
Published: 8/Mar/2024
Source: GNA/Ghanaweb
The Electoral Commission (EC) has aborted plans to use a new Constitutional Instrument (C.I) to govern the 2024 General Election.
This means that the Ghana Card will not be the sole identity document for the next voters’ registration exercise ahead of the election.
The existing C.I. 126, which was passed by Parliament ahead of the 2020 General Election, recognises the use of the passport and the guarantor system as valid means for new registrants to prove their identity as Ghanaians.
The EC’s decision to maintain C.I. 126 also means that the guarantor system, which the Commission had intended to abolish in subsequent registration exercises, would be applicable for new registrants.
These were some major fallouts of an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting held in Accra on Thursday, chaired by Mrs Jean Mensa, Chairperson of the EC.
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Dr Edward Omane Boamah, Director of Elections, NDC, said the meeting was cordial and welcomed the EC’s decision to utilise the guarantor system in the next limited voters’ registration exercise.
“We have always used evidence that the 2023 Limited Registration, over 60 per cent of the registrants registered through the guarantor system and not either the passport or the Ghana card.
“Therefore, if within a short period of less than one year, the EC was going to jettison the guarantor system through a new C.I., it would have meant that the EC was going to disenfranchise a lot of Ghanaians,” he said.
He said the NDC would continuously evaluate the guidelines for the 2024 Election and ensure that the timelines were met.
Mr Evans Nimako, the Director of Elections, NPP, said the NPP was in support of the abolishment of the guarantor system to sanitise the electoral roll, but would accept the EC’s decision and make sure “the right things are done”.
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