The Chairman of the Electoral
Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan says, he will not vote in Friday’s
election.
He explained he cannot vote because
all the contesting presidential candidates are his
brothers.
“I will not vote as a matter of
principle. The referee does not have to vote for one team. Casting
a vote for any of the contestants would be tantamount to being on
one particular side therefore as a matter of principle, I don’t
vote”.
Dr Afari Gyan who was speaking at a
news conference in Accra to highlight the preparedness of the EC
for Friday’s polls said he has never voted in any election as the
Chairman of the Commission even though he was a registered
voter.
“But in my private life, I would
vote”, he said.
Dr Afari-Gyan made this known in
response to a question on whether he made any formal choice during
elections at the news conference which was organised by the Ghana Journalist Association
(GJA).
He said even though the EC would be
making use of new technology such as the verification kits, the
commission would still be relying on fax machines to receive
results at the headquarters.
“This is because we would need to
see signatures endorsing the results”.
Dr Afari-Gyan explained that this
time around when the results arrive at the headquarters, the EC
would quickly make copies available to political party
representatives so as to speed up the process.
He said there were a total of
14.07million registered voters
The EC Chairman denied that the
Commission had said minors could vote explaining that what the EC
had said was that between the time the anomaly was identified and
polling day, those minors could not be legally prevented from
voting.
The EC Chairman said the register
has been legally certified by a court of the law and that from now
only persuasions and appeals could be used.
“If you see a small kid in the
queue, be patient for him or her to pass. It does not mean they
cannot be punished,” he added.
“They passed infront of us and we did not challenge them
during the registration and during the display of the
register”.
