Ghana's electoral body obeys apex court orders, deletes over 56,000 voters

Ghana’s Electoral Commission has disclosed that it has complied with the Supreme court’s order to delete over 56,000 names from the current voters register.

The courts’ order was necessitated by the fact that the particular persons had registered with a card that was not legally valid for the purpose. The deletions are in respect of persons who used the country’s National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) cards as proof of their Ghanaian citizenship in the last registration exercise.

The Commission announced that it had deleted the names of some 56,772 earlier this week, however, in a list making the rounds in local media circles, the EC captures 56,900 names of NHIS card registrants.

The deletion of the NHIS card registrants is in conformity with a directive by the Supreme Court following a protracted impasse over the credibility of the voters register ahead of the 2016 elections.

The ruling followed a suit filed by two political players, one Abu Ramadan and Evans Nimako, who in 2014 won a lawsuit that barred the use of NHIS cards for registration.

The court subsequently ordered the EC to produce a list of all persons who registered with the ‘invalid’ cards.

Ghana’s Judiciary and Elections

The judiciary, Ghana’s third arm of government is largely seen as the last stop with regards to electoral issues. It has over the years presided over cases of disagreement after polls.

The very recent, perhaps its biggest contribution to the advancement of Ghana’s electoral system was in 2013 when it heard a landmark election petition that was presented to it by the leading opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) which alleged that the 2012 polls were rigged.

A panel of judges who sat in a televised process that spanned over eight months probing several witnesses including the electoral commissioner at the time. In the end, the court affirmed the victory of incumbent John Dramani Mahama but gave directions for key changes to the electoral system.

Ghana’s electoral commission

Ghana’s electoral system has won global acclaim for organizing elections over the years, starting 1992 when the west African country transited from military rule and adopted the current constitution.

The EC has under its belt, six general elections that has seen the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) winning four times whiles the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has won two.

The upcoming elections, its seventh is seen as a straight contest between the president and the NPP’s Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo.