Hundreds of supporters of the Inter-Party Resistance Against New Voter Register (IPRNA), have embarked on demonstration through the streets of Accra to protest against the compilation of a new voters’ register ahead of the upcoming general elections.
The demonstration, third of its kind, on Thursday, February 2020, dubbed ‘Wɔkpɛnɛɛ’, to wit, we will not agree, saw protestors wielding placards and clad in red arm and head bands.
Thirteen political parties have thrown their weight behind the decision by the Electoral Commission (EC) to compile a new voters’ register for this year’s parliamentary and presidential elections and called on all other political parties to support the EC in its quest to deliver credible elections.
In the estimation of the parties, the EC had made a solid case for a new register in terms of cost, time and credibility, hence their decision to support the commission to compile the new register.
But a member of IPRNA and MP for Ningo-Prampram, Sam Nartey George, in an interview during the demonstration said agitation for a new voters’ register is done by the opposition and not the government.
“Every time we’ve had agitation for a new register in this country, it’s been by the opposition, not by the government.”
“The current register was done in 2012. Which people were demonstrating in 2011 and 2010,” he questioned.
Was it not Gabby Okyere Darko, he noted, and Nana Akufo-Addo doing the demonstration.
“Was it not opposition?”
“So why is a sitting government seeking to change the register?”
“We used a particular football to play home match, John Mahama won in 2012. In 2016, we went and played away with the same away with the same football, Nana Addo won. Now they say we should come and play champion of champions. Let’s use the same ball, you say let’s change the ball.”
“Don’t you see that the person is afraid?”
“Don’t you see that he’s seen he has lost,” he observed.
