The Electoral Commission is optimistic that the conflicts seen during the most recent voter transfer exercise will disappear if the Ghana Card is the only form of identification used for elections in the future.

Numerous instances of chaos and violence occurred during this exercise, most notably at Weija, where Mavis Hawa Koomson, the son of the Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East, was hurt.

Following a meeting with civil society organizations, Commission Chairperson Jean Mensa spoke to the media and expressed optimism that Parliament would acknowledge the necessity of passing a bill that would make the Ghana Card the only prerequisite for registering to vote. In order to guarantee free and peaceful elections in the next general elections, the Commission collaborated with more than fifty civil society organizations.

After the meeting, Commission Chairperson Jean Mensa spoke with the media to express his satisfaction with the contributions from the CSOs. However, he also emphasized that in order to prevent the conflicts that occurred during the recently concluded vote transfer exercise, Parliament must recognize that the Ghana Card is the only requirement for future elections.

”We have just concluded as I mentioned the transfer of votes exercise and it also went very well. We did observe some unrest and conflicts in some of the centres. Thankfully no lives were lost, and we do hope that the conflicts around the guarantor system which lead to parties challenging their opponents because they come to the stations, they bus the people to the station and come using the guarantor system.”

”We hope that in the future parliament will be in agreement with the EC’s proposal to make the Ghana card the sole document identification card but that will be after 2024.”