The Center for Democratic and Accountable Governance, CEDAG has petitioned the President to remove the Deputy Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Dr. Bossman Asare from office.
Citing pronouncements made by Dr. Bossman on the cancelled referendum on media platforms, the Secretary for CEDAG, Awuni Akyireba said, for an independent body like the EC, there is the need to have non-partisan persons helming its affairs.
“His public exposure or disposition exhibits an attitude that does not engender the confidence we need to have in the Electoral Commission. We can never toy with the democratic peace we enjoy and if we should allow any malcontent who by overly bloated in the head by appointment and cannot adhere to the ethical conduct and requirements that comes along with the appointment then we can only seek the intervention of the president to convey to the chief justice to commission an enquiry into this so that Bossman Asare is relieved of his position”.
In the petition to the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and copied the National Peace Council, the British High Commission, ECOWAS Parliament, Embassy of the United States, German Embassy, Jacob Osei Yeboah, New Patriotic Party, National Democratic Congress, and the Convention People’s Party, the group complained of a series of what it describes as misconduct by Dr. Asare.
The group complained that his comments on the just aborted December 17 Referendum to allow political parties to participate in local government elections where he allegedly openly campaigned for a YES vote during a television interview is unacceptable.
For them, the comments “cast a shadow of slur on him as a person that is not fit for the job of Deputy Electoral Commissioner.
“It is highly reprehensible, the conduct of the Deputy Chairperson Dr Bossman Asare who heads and oversees the election process of our country to take sides and openly campaigned in favour of a moiety of the opposing group,” the petition said.
This conduct and some others, according to the group should not be countenanced, a reason the group is asking President Akufo-Addo to “remove Dr Bossman Asare from office as Deputy Commissioner to restore the confidence and to safeguard our democracy and the peace of the country.”