Senior Programs Officer at CDD-Ghana Dr. Paul Nana Kwabena Aborampah Mensah has defended position of the Ghana Electoral Commission’s Chairperson Jean Mensah, that the organization cannot be blamed for violence that occure during 2020 general elections.
Mr. Mensah of CDD-Ghana, who was speaking on Accra based Starr FM, posited that issues of security during any election in country are not managed by EC, so, it would be erroneous for people to blame EC whose mandate is basically to manage electoral related issues.
“The EC has consistently responded to issues that are beyond her mandate and that is why I was happy that for the first time, I heard our EC partly apportioning the responsibility to the appropriate authorities and that is how it should be. Election management is a stakeholder issue. We have various stakeholders who play various roles to make it a success.”
He continued “The role of the EC is clearly defined in the Constitution, management of the actual election and supervision of the political parties, especially registration are in conformity to the political party laws. Election security is handled by the National Election Security Taskforce which has a decentralized authority at the regional and district level.”
The Chairperson for Ghana’s Electoral Commission, at an ECOWAS Parliament programme in Winneba acknowledged that there was some violence during the 2020 General Elections that claimed eight lives but rejected blame for the occurrence.
Speaking to members of the ECOWAS Parliament at Winneba on Wednesday, Jean Mensa said none of the violence that led to the deaths occurred at any of the EC’s polling stations.
“Sadly seven lives were lost and though this did not occur at our polling nor arise at as misconduct on our part, one life lost is one too many. We are confident that our security agencies will share their investigations and recommendations for future learnings,” Jean Mensa told members of the ECOWAS Parliament.
However, Dr. Mensah said it has always come as a surprise to him how the Chairperson of Ghana’s Electoral Governing Body, has consistently taken responsibility for responding to issues that do not fall under her mandate, insisting that the EC had no role in the deaths recorded in the 2020 elections.
