By: Nicholas Osei-Wusu
The Electoral Commission, EC, says it has stepped up its preparation towards a free, fair and transparent parliamentary By-election in the Kumawu Constituency in the Ashanti region next month.
Speaking with GBC NEWS‘ Ashanti Regional Correspondent Nicholas Osei-Wusu in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional Director of the Commission, Mr. Benjamin Bannor-Bioh, disclosed that, among the scheduled pre-election activities is the recruitment of about 300 Temporary Officials undergoing training to help with the conduct of the polls at the Polling and Collation Centres on the 23rd of May, 2023.
According to the Regional Director of the EC, a number of pre-election activities have been scheduled with clear timelines in order to making the by-election successful.
Among them is the Commission’s engagement with key actors and began with a Regional Inter-party Advisory Committee Meeting, RIPAC in Kumasi last week which had seven of the registered political parties taking part. They are the governing New Patriotic Party, NPP, the biggest opposition party, National Democratic Congress, NDC, Ghana Union Movement, GUM and Convention People’s Party, CPP. The others were National Democratic Party, NDP, People’s National Convention, PNC and the Great Consolidated People’s Party, GCPP with a similar interaction planned at the Kumawu district level as part of the engagement of key actors in the scheduled by-election.
The Regional Director disclosed also that the Commission has recruited about 300 Temporary staff to augment permanent ones to adequately conduct the election.
Each of the Polling Centres is to be manned by four election officials including Presiding Officers. All the recruited such staff are to be trained in their roles before, during and even after the polls.
“When it comes to elections, the permanent staff of the Commission alone cannot do it and so we dwell on services of Temporary officials. Most of them are usually teachers”, Mr. Bannor-Bioh explained.
Asked how the recruitment was conducted, the EC’s Regional Director further explained that the processes were not only diligent but also transparent to ensure that no applicant with known partisan affiliation got engaged and noted “parties who care can ask for the list so that when you go through and you find out anybody who has been recruited is, may be partisan or is not qualified to work with us, you bring the issue up, we’ll investigate and take a decision on it.”
The Ashanti Regional EC Director disclosed that officially, Nomination will be opened from the 2nd to the 5th of May, 2023 saying that this time around, the Nomination Forms will be available only through the EC’s official website without the option of hard copies.
Mr. Bannor-Bioh cautioned that, while the Commission is determined to ensure a free, fair and transparent by-election, it will not be intimidated by any of the key stakeholders, particularly the political parties, to alter the will of the electorate in Kumawu.
Mr. Bannor-Bioh assured that no new voters will be added to the existing Voters’ Register and asked the parties interested in contesting for the seat to be vigilant to complement the role of the EC.
So far, only two political parties, the ruling NPP and the biggest opposition, NDC in addition to an Independent aspirant have shown keen interest in taking part in the By-election and have all kick-started their campaign activities in earnest.
ABOUT THE KUMAWU BY-ELECTION
The Kumawu Constituency is one of the 47 electoral demarcations in the Ashanti region and has since 1996 remained one of the strongholds of the New Patriotic Party, NPP. It shares boundaries with Sekyere East, Sekyere Central and Sekyere Afram Plains constituencies.
Since 2012, the late Mr. Philip Basoah has represented the people in that area as the Member of Parliament, MP on the ticket of the NPP.
He however had his keenest challenge in 2020 when an Independent Candidate, Mr. Kwaku Kodua who broke ranks with the same party, nearly snatched it after losing that contest by a three thousand votes margin.
Unfortunately, with almost two years into his current term, Mr. Basoah passed away late last month after a short illness.
This caused the Speaker of Parliament to declare the seat of Kumawu in Parliament vacant. Subsequent to this, the Electoral Commission, with the mandate to organize public elections, has scheduled a By-election on the 23rd of next month in the Constituency for the electorate to select a replacement in accordance with Article 112 Section 5 of the 1992 Constitution.
The Kumawu Constituency has a voter population of 34, 481 with 75 Polling Centres.
With exactly one month to the date, GBC NEWS interacted with the Ashanti regional office of the Commission to gauge its preparedness for the exercise.
