The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has announced the termination of the registration certificates of 17 political parties.
In an advertiser’s announcement in the national dailies, the EC explained that the parties have failed to establish national and regional offices in the country.
The parties include; the United Progressive Party (UPP) led by Akwasi Addae, popularly known as Odike, the United Front Party (UFP), the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), the National Reform Party (NRP), the Reform Patriotic Democrats (RPD).
The others are; the Democratic People’s Party (DPP), United Development System Party (UDSP), Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere (EGLE), Yes People’s Party (YPP), United Ghana Movement (UGM), New Vision Party (NVP), Ghana Democratic Republican Party (GDRP) and the Ghana National Party (GNP).
The rest are; the Power Unity Party (PUP), People’s Action Party (PAP), United Renaissance Party (URP) and the United Love Party (ULP).
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The EC has justified its action on the basis of Section 15 (3) (c) of the Political Parties Act 574.
Prior to this termination, the Commission on October 13 and 17 cautioned these political parties and urged them to fulfill the requirements of the Political Parties Act 2000, by submitting to the EC, their national and regional offices across the country.
It, therefore, gave them up to Thursday, October 20, 2022 to show proof of why their registrations should not be cancelled.
As a newspaper, we expect the coming days to be interesting, as some of the delisted political parties might seek redress in court, we believe although the freedom of association remains sacrosanct as enshrined in the Constitution, the need to sanitise the democratic space by weeding out ineffective and dead weight political parties cannot be overemphasised.
The Electoral Commission, has a lot of work to do, beyond revoking the certificates of these sleeping political parties.
The deregistration should be a wake-up call for stricter registration laws which would help to narrow the gap exploited by unserious people from polluting the political space with mercantile parties.
Since 1992, Ghana has witnessed political jobbers take advantage of the opportunity to register several political parties primarily for the purpose of entering into a trade with bigger parties, rather than contest and win elections with the intent of providing good governance.
