Rhoda Osei-Afful, team lead,CODEO
• CODEO has called for friendly relations between the EC and the NDC
• They believe a reviewed relationship is necessary to prevent future deadlocks
• NDC recently boycotted IPAC meetings and subsequent rejection of the EC’s proposed electoral reforms
Team lead at CODEO Rhoda Osei-Afful has raised concerns on the need for the Electoral Commission (EC) and the National Democratic Congress to rework their relationship
According to Rhoda Osei-Afful, this is necessary to prevent future deadlocks.
The NDC and the EC have constantly found it hard to agree on electoral regulations and processes to ensure a free and fair election.
One of them is the NDC’s recent boycott of IPAC meetings and subsequent rejection of the EC’s proposed electoral reforms.
But speaking on News File on JoyNews, the CODEO official explained that, “I expect that the Electoral Commission will review the way it relates to the party, their posturing, their communication.”
“I think then can tone down sometimes on that and they should be able to open up and we expect the NDC to also do the same, otherwise we are going to go back into a deadlock and that is not going to be helpful.
“There are other more areas that need reform and we have to work through some of these issues, especially in the area of party regulation,” she indicated.
Osei-Afful believes that the EC has been quite permissive in its dealings with the NDC hence the need for an improvement relationship.
“The posturing of Dr Serebour this morning suggest that the commission has been lenient, indeed they have been very lenient in terms of regulating the parties in line but I think we need to improve, we can do better so that we can address some of these same concerns that now the NDC is raising about mushrooming parties that are coming in to do the bidding of one actor or the other”, Mrs Osei-Afful added.
However, the Communications Officer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, made mention that the NDC cannot partake in an event with political parties that are compromised by the EC, adding that the fact that the biggest political parties are given the same voting rights as smaller parties, is another disincentive.
Meanwhile, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has proposed six election reforms following their rejection of the ones proposed by the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) after a two-day meeting to review the 2020 general election.