Former Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has said that electoral officers who will be caught in the process of trying to rig an election, for any individual or a political party should be charged for treason.
Similarly, he also suggested that Electronic Experts, who would be apprehended for also trying to temper with election figures to favour a particular political party, also deserved to be punished for treason.
According to him, under no circumstances should the will of the people be changed by professional electoral officers and electronic experts, who are trained, and know the outcome of their illegal actions.
“Persons who commit serious election offenses, particularly if they are professional election officials or electronic experts, must be severely punished for attempting to undermine the will of the people, possibly a treasonable act.
“And I’m singling out professional election administrators and the electronic experts because they know exactly what they are doing,” Dr. Afari-Gyan categorically stated in Kumasi on Tuesday.
Speaking at the ongoing Ghana Bar Association (GBA) Conference in Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region, he said a voter may commit some infraction but for a trained official to commit offense, he/she should be punished.
“An election official by their training knows what is the right thing to do. The electronic expert who is tampering with the figures knows exactly what he/she is doing, and these people I’m suggesting must be seriously punished,” he added.
Speaking about national elections, Dr. Afari-Gyan also suggested that the judiciary should take punitive actions against political parties and people who file improbable election petitions in the court.
He said aside causing unnecessary delays and wasting the time of the judiciary and the EC, the outcome of such cases in court usually harms the image of the court and the electoral commission.
According to Dr. Afari-Gyan, supporters and sympathisers of parties, who sent such improbable cases to court, more often than not, wrongly accused the court and the EC after they have been declared losers in court.
“Such baseless election petitions could harm the credibility of both the judiciary and the EC,” he said and “called for stronger judicial scrutiny to prevent unwarranted cases from tarnishing the image of the electoral process.”
Source: www.kumasimail.com
