Three suspects have been detained by the Adabraka Police in Accra for the illegal possession and filling of guarantee forms for prospective voters in the ongoing limited voter registration exercise.
The three were picked up by private citizens within the precincts of the Electoral Commission head office on Saturday during the registration exercise and handed over to the Police.
Reports say the suspects were caught signing the guarantee forms which are solely filled by EC officials for applicants who do not have the required identification cards to register on their own.
They were subsequently dragged to the Adabraka Police Station.
An eyewitness narrated the incident to Citi News, saying “There were signing guarantor forms and they were thumbprinting for people and the forms they had were bulky so I raised alarm.”
“It is a bizarre situation because the guarantor forms are supposed to be handled by only EC officials and when you have party people having the guarantor forms who are not EC officials and they were signing themselves, thumbprinting themselves, it raises some eyebrows,” he added.
The exercise, which began across the country at the EC’s district offices and in over 1,000 additional centres has largely been peaceful, except for some instances of network challenges.
A few days ago, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ashanti Region accused the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of deliberately frustrating people from registering in some parts of the region in the exercise.
The NPP in the Ashanti Region said some NDC agents deliberately delayed the registration process by raising needless disagreements.
‘Publish the number of voters’
Meanwhile the Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu has asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to publish the number of people captured in the exercise so far.
This according to him, it will ensure transparency in the wake of the challenges that have characterized the exercise in offline registration in some areas.
Haruna Iddrisu who spoke during a tour of some centres in Tamale said the offline registration defeats the purpose of the limited voter registration exercise.
“I request that the Electoral Commission publishes nationally, the outcome of each day of registration across the country. The regulation of 2016 CI 91 provides that they provide that detail to political parties. At the end of day 1, how many persons were registered? How many were challenged? How many were done offline? How many online?” he said.
The limited voters’ registration exercise took off last Monday and is expected to end on Sunday, July 7, 2019.
A total of 1,573 electoral areas have been designated nationwide to cater for persons in hard-to-reach areas after complaints by the NDC.