The Minority Caucus in Parliament has kicked against the proposed Electoral Commission’s new Constitutional Instrument (C.I) that seeks to completely eliminate the use of the guarantor system to prove one’s eligibility to be captured onto the voter’s registrar.
Addressing the media on the proposed CI, the minority said the move by the Electoral Commission, is a scheme to deliberately deprive millions of Ghanaians of the opportunity to register and have their names on the electoral roll.
The group, therefore, believes the time-tested guarantor system should be maintained because the EC’s basis for the move is unjustifiable.
“For emphasis, the Electoral Commission was pushed to provide evidence to back the claim of so-called abuse of the guarantor system, the EC indicated that in the 2019 voter registration for instance, only 15,474 people, representing just 0.09% of the total of 17,029,981 registered voters, were challenged on the basis of the guarantor system.
“This statistic is a very insignificant and immaterial percentage to warrant a total abrogation of the guarantor system, particularly at a time many do not have the Ghana Card. We say this because the National Identity Register Regulations 2012 (LI 2111), makes room for the guarantor system when it comes to acquiring a Ghana Card.
“We hold the view that the time-tested guarantor system must be maintained in our voter registration process and this position is absolutely nonnegotiable. Common sense should tell any objective mind that a source document for the Ghana Card must be a source document for the Voter ID Card and vice versa,” the minority leader said on Wednesday, March 1, 2023.
Dr. Ato Forson furthered that it is unclear what mischief the EC is seeking to cure by relying solely on the Ghana Card as a source document for the registration of voters when it intends to completely outlaw the guarantor system which constituted about 40% of Ghana Card registrations.
