By William
Yaw Owusu
Monday, October
16, 2017
The
opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has resolved to scrap the
biometric registration undertaken for its members ahead of the 2016 general
elections which it lost miserably to the then opposition New Patriotic Party
(NPP).
Leadership
of the party has now decided to conduct what it has termed, ‘Re-registration’
for all the members before the commencement of the exercise to elect new party
officers from polling station to national levels.
The
NDC took the decision at the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting last
Thursday at its plush $20 million headquarters at Adabraka, Accra, where
security was said to be very tight, with NEC members being screened before the
meeting.
Party Timetable
National
executives of the party, through the Deputy General Secretary in-charge of Operations,
Koku Anyidoho, issued a circular after the meeting, confirming the scrapping of
the biometric which cost the party millions of dollars and said they would be meeting
on Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 11:00 am “to flush out the decisions arrived at
by the NEC.”
The
circular, entitled, ‘Press Engagement On NDC Re-registration, Branch
Re-organization & Internal Elections Timetable,’ stated that between 18 and
24 October, 2017 there was going to be what they called, ‘National outrage
programme,’ followed by the ‘fresh registration’ for party members of all
branches between November and December, 2017.
The
branch elections are expected to be held on 2nd, 27th and
28th January, 2018 followed by constituency elections on 3rd,
24th and 25th March, 2018.
Regional
youth, women and Zongo caucus elections are expected to be held on 2nd
and 3rd June, 2018 respectively and slated the regional conference for
June 9, 2018.
National
youth and women conferences have been scheduled for 13th and 14th
July, 2018 while National Executive Conference is to come off on 27th
and 28th July, 2018.
According
to the 13-member committee that investigated the cause of the NDC’s massive
defeat at the last general election, the biometric registration, which was
fraught with widespread irregularities, made members of the NDC to believe that
they had the numbers to retain power.
“The
register gave a misleading impression of the party’s true strength in some
branches and constituencies as some of the aspirants registered non-NDC members
in their bid to win at all cost and by all means,” the Prof Kwesi Botchwey-led
Committee report indicated.
Former
President Rawlings, the NDC founder, had also alluded to the fact that some party
members fraudulently registered NPP members in order to thwart the party’s structures.
Imminent Action
Scrapping
the ‘fraudulent’ biometric register, which is said to have caused the party’s
problems, had been high on the agenda since the NDC lost the elections, and it
did not come as a surprise to many when the decision was finally taken.
Even
before the NEC meeting last Thursday, some of the advocates, particularly the
Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the party, Ade Coker, had been saying that the
plan to ditch the biometric system was to bring sanity into the party’s
register.
Speaking
at the party’s ‘unity walk’ in Accra recently, Mr Ade Coker accepted the
Botchwey Committee report on the biometric registration, which was manipulated
to make the NDC look big.
“We
are now going to ensure that the biometric registration, which contributed to
our downfall, is going to be scrapped and a better system put in place so that
the true NDC people will be identified,” Ade Coker said.
From
pages 15 to 19 of the 65-page Executive Summary of the 455-page Kwesi Botchwey report,
it states how the party was inconsistent in deciding on the biometric exercise
and manipulation of the system by some individuals.
The
committee that supervised the unpopular biometric exercise was chaired by
Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, NDC National Vice Chairman and Director of Elections.
According
to the committee’s report, the NDC “implemented the biometric registration
project without any safety nets.”
The
report said the manipulation of the register was real and that had put the
integrity of the whole exercise into question.
“The
integrity of the biometric register was compromised and a number of the
primaries flawed on account of widespread manipulation,” the report maintained.
Ethnicity
It
also says the biometric exercise brought “ethnicism in the constituencies of
diverse ethnic groups” in the party, adding “constituencies that hitherto
supported and promoted the party as one people became divided during the
primaries and in some cases after the primaries.”
According
to the report, the whole idea of the biometric registration was imposed on NDC
members, saying, “There were no broad consultations with stakeholders,
especially the MPs who were to be directly affected by the system.”
Fraud
“Some
membership cards were allegedly printed by unauthorized persons. The biometric
register was not piloted before implementation,” it averred.
Prof
Botchwey’s committee reports, “Some national, regional and constituency
executives had preferred candidates and therefore skewed to favour them,
leaving grassroots members bitter and frustrated and making reconciliation
difficult before and even after elections.”
It
claims, “Some members of the biometric registration committee itself were
alleged to have resorted to working independently of the committee and dealing
directly with aspirants and other interested parties in the parliamentary
primaries in their respective constituencies.”
No comments:
Post a Comment