Parliament has unanimously agreed to summon the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Jean Adukwei Mensa to brief the House on the preparations of the Commission to conduct a free, fair and credible election come 7th December, 2020.
Minority leader and majority leader, made this known when the House resumed sitting of the second meeting of the Fourth Session of the 7th Parliament on Tuesday, May 19, 2020.
Haruna Iddrisu, the minority leader, who proposed the summons on the floor or parliament argued that there is the need for the Commission to brief the House on its planned roadmap to organize the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections amidst the Coronavirus pandemic.
Countries around the world whose elections are due in 2020 are faced with a peculiar challenge presented by COVID-19; to conduct their elections freely and still ensure their citizens do not get infected with the disease which spreads easily through public gatherings.
Regardless of this challenge, countries such as Guinea and Mali in Africa as well as South Korea in Asia have successfully organized their elections while some states in the United States of America and Europe are contemplating same in order to fulfill their constitutionally mandates.
Ghana’s government has also repeatedly maintained that with or without COVID-19, elections will be held in December as the 1992 Constitution does not provide an alternative.
Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Haruna Iddrisu said “I requested for a meeting for us to engage with the electoral commissioner of Ghana, I only can renew that call that his country, COVID or no COVID, we are a democracy and our democracy will evolve. We will be expected to conduct presidential and parliamentary elections and we need to know what their road map is going forward, in respect of that.”
Majority leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu supported his colleague’s call by stating that the Parliament must engage the Electoral Commission whether at the committee levels or before the full House.
“Mr Speaker, I agree that elections certainly must hold because as I indicated, the constitution is ambivalence in a way to proceed should there be no election and January 7, 2021 should catch us. We find ourselves in an…and it’s the reason why everything must be done to provide for the holding of the elections….the Minority leader raised some of these things that we should engage the commission, I believe that it is appropriate…” he said.
