Non-residents can be polling agents – EC

Ms Laurentia Kpatakpa, Volta Regional Director of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC), has stressed that no regulation states that polling agents of political parties must necessarily be residents of constituencies they are assigned to.

She said no law therefore bars political parties from assigning non-residents as agents across regions.

Ms Kpatakpa was responding to concerns of Mr Forster Segbe, Volta Regional Secretary of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) at a meeting of the Volta Regional Inter-Party Dialogue Committee (IPDC) in Ho, about assaults on polling agents in certain parts of the Volta Region during the 2008 general elections.

She said ordinarily, the local party members were appointed as agents, perhaps because they knew the terrain better, especially so, when elections in Ghana were localised.

“But certainly no law bars the political parties from appointing polling agents across regions”, she stated.

Ms Kpatakpa advised that agents wherever they came from should be duly authenticated and formally introduced to the EC, to enable the Commission to take responsibility for them.

The IPDC meeting was an interaction with the top hierarchy of political parties in the region, to get them to commit their parties to peaceful elections and challenges.

Ms Kpatakpa advised that the IPDC seek support from Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) for its operations rather than the political parties.

Source: GNA