EC to ensure improved election in 2012

The Electoral Commission (EC) has said it would leave no stone unturned to ensure that the 2012 becomes an improvement over Election 2008.
Consequently, it had started a review process of all its activities during last year’s elections with its majors stakeholders to find out what went wrong and concerns of political parties and observers with a view to collectively fashioning out how to nib in the bud any hitches that may occur in the next general elections.
Mr Albert K. Arhin, the Director of Elections of the EC, disclosed this at a special Regional Inter-Party Advisory Committee (RIPAC) in Accra over the weekend. The programme was under the theme “Safeguarding the integrity of the Ballot”.
It was a collaborative effort by the EC, the Canadian International Development Agency and KAB Governance Consult. Participants were from the various political parties, the security agencies, the media, National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the EC.
“As soon as we finish one elections, it is proper that we start preparing toward the next elections” Mr Arhin said and added that, “the meeting is to allow you (participants) the opportunity to tell us where we went wrong, what was better, all in the spirit of shaping the future elections”.
He added that although the 2008 elections had very minimal problems, the EC could not be complacent and sit idle but must make the effort to straighten all rough edges.
He said the EC was not against any suggestion or contribution that was made in good faith for the well-being of the electoral process.
Addressing some of the concerns raised by the political party leaders, Mr Arhin said political party agents at polling station have no right under the law to intervene in an issue, all they could do was to report any issue of concern to the appropriate quarters for redress.
“Apart from the staff of the EC, no other person can intervene at the polling stations”, Mr Arhin said.
He also expressed surprise that with all the in-built checks in the electoral process, people still made much issue out of the ballot boxes after the ballot had been declared at the polling station.
He said once the ballot had been counted, and all the political party agents have received their copies of the result slips at the polling station, the ballot boxes and their contents were of little essence because the results could easily be obtained from the party agents anytime.
According to Mr Arhin, the Achilles Heels of the EC in the Election 2008 was the transfer of votes and special voting exercise and gave the assurance that the EC had taken steps to avoid such problems from reoccurring.
Mr Arhin attributed the cause of the issue to the overwhelming numbers of the transfers and the failure of the applicants to provide adequate personal information for the EC to effect the transfer appropriately.
Mr Hubert Akumiah, the Director of Information Technology Department of the EC, explained that the reason why the EC delayed in coming out with its final results long after other organisations had collated their provisional results was that the EC had to check, double check and verify every result before putting it in the public domain.
The Greater Accra Regional Director of the EC, Mr Muhammed Adoquaye, said before the 2008 Elections, the EC was able to educate party officials and candidates which he said helped in minimising the problems associated with elections, thereby minimising the problems associated with elections.
He said the meetings and workshops for the political parties also engendered the spirits of cooperation and unity among political parties during the elections.