According to the Council, that would ensure that only vibrant political parties were allowed to operate within the country’s political space.

In the view of the Council, there were rules and regulations that governed the operations of political parties and, therefore, their non-conformance to those rules should lead to the revocation of their licences.

Observation

Leading the call is the Chairman of the Council of State, Nana Otuo Siriboe II, who observed that “groups get registered as political parties with consummate ease.

 They take their papers on Monday and on Wednesday they have a certificate to operate as a political party.

If you get it so cheaply, you end up buying it very expensively so we should tighten up the process of obtaining a political party registration licence.”

He stated that “there are regulations that govern political parties and if they are not conforming to the rules, then their licences need to be revoked.”

He stated this when the Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa, accompanied by her two deputies, Dr Eric Bossman Asare and Mr Samuel Tettey, paid a courtesy call on the Council in Accra.

The visit formed part of an engagement by the EC with stakeholders in the electoral process to apprise them of the various reforms being undertaken by the commission to ensure that the country’s electoral processes run smoothly and to take their input for a successful execution of the EC’s mandate.

Ease of registration

Nana Siriboe II recalled that “those days, when a party came out with the fact that it had a political registration certificate, it was cause for jubilation but over the years, it has been a bit cheapened.”

He, therefore, called on the EC to tighten the process of political party licence acquisition to ensure that only serious parties acquired the right.

“The laws make it easy for people to acquire political party licence but if the process is reviewed and made robust, only the qualified ones will get the permit,” he maintained.

Other members of the Council shared similar sentiments: “There are some political parties who are only found in Accra. They do not exist in the rural areas.

It is only at elections that you see these political parties,” a member said.

Unwavering commitment

Mrs Mensa, in her presentation to the Council, said the visit was to primarily ºassure the Council that the EC was committed to undertaking credible, free, fair and transparent and peaceful elections in the country.

“In all that we do, my team and I are mindful of articles 45 and 46 of the 1992 Constitution and would like to assure you that in carrying out our mandate, those articles would be our guiding light.

We will ensure that as much as possible, to the best of our ability, we operate within the confines of our mandate as enshrined in the Constitution,” she said.

“Over the years,” she said, “the EC has operated as a body onto itself and this is one of the things that we are keen to take off, so we are here really to demystify the operations of the Commission and take off the cloaks of secrecy that have shrouded our operations.”

She added: “We recognise that the Council of State is an eminent, influential and credible body in the country, so we will consult you extensively in many of the things that we do.”

Compliance with electoral laws

On the compliance of political parties with the electoral laws, she said if the electoral laws were to be applied stringently, the licences of all the political parties would be revoked.

For instance, she said a good number of the registered political parties had misinterpreted the part of the law that enjoined them to be organised in two-thirds of the districts in the country to mean they could have offices under trees.

Mrs Mensa noted that the same issue had come up in the Commission’s engagement with Parliament and that the EC would do all that was possible to address that national concern.