Political parties react to parliament shooting down Nov 7 voting day
The decision by Parliament to shoot down the Constitutional Amendment Bill to change the election date from December 7 to November 7 has been greeted with mixed reactions from five political parties.
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The parties are the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) and the Convention People’s Party (CPP).
While some of the parties said the decision not to change the date for the election would be of little consequence to them, others said it had thrown their programmes out of gear and that they would have to meet to replan their calendar of events.
Reacting to the decision, the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, said he was not surprised at the stance taken by the NPP Members of Parliament (MPs) in voting against the bill.
He said their stance portrayed double standards because they had agreed at the beginning that they would go by the consensus arrived at during discussions with the other political parties, only to turn round to do otherwise.
According to Mr Asiedu Nketiah, what it meant was that the NPP was not ready for the November 7 elections and that in order not to embarrass themselves by saying so, they now conveniently wanted to put the blame on the Electoral Commission (EC).
He said since the Majority did not have the numbers in the House at the time of voting, the Minority used their numbers to defeat the motion.
He, however, stated that the move would neither give advantage nor cause disadvantage to the NDC and that the party would adjust its timetable to the December 7 voting day.
NPP
But the Communications Director of the NPP, Nana Akomea, said the party decided to rescind its decision on the November 7 date because it had become apparent that the EC was not ready to hold the polls on that day.
He recounted that it was the NPP that mooted the idea for a change of the election day to November 7 following the election petition.
That, he said, was followed by the party’s submission at an Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) roundtable discussion in 2014, where the party had opted for the November 7 date.
It was the party’s view, he said, that the EC should have taken action on the date-change a long time ago but it had waited till July 2016 to effect the change when there was not adequate time.
More so, he said, the MPs of the party were not comfortable with the proposal to idle in Parliament for 21 days because they had to do preparatory work on their campaigns. PPP
The National Secretary of the ), Mr Murtala Mohammed, said Parliament’s rejection of the November 7 poll would affect the party because “we now have to restructure our entire campaign plan”.
“The PPP has already prepared its calendar of campaign but now we have to go back and change everything. The timing is bad for us and now we are required to remain silent,” he said.
GCPP
The National Organiser of the GCPP, Mr George Amoah, said although it would affect the party’s calendar, there was absolutely nothing it could do about it.
“All we can do now is to adhere to December 7 and work towards getting our campaign message to the people on time,” he said.
CPP
The Director of Communications of the CPP, Mr Kadri Abdul Rauf Issifu, said now that Parliament had rejected the November 7 date, the CPP leadership would have to sit down to deliberate on what to do next.
Asked whether it would affect the party in any way, he said: “I cannot say anything unless I discuss it with my leadership.”