The New Juaben Municipal Director of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Lydia Sackey has advised political parties contesting this year’s general elections to appoint credible and reliable polling agents to represent them at the polling stations.
She explained that the credibility of the polling agents enhances the reliability of the overall election results and help to promote peaceful elections.
Mrs Sackey said a situation whereby some polling agents are influenced with money to compromise their position does not promote free, fair and transparent elections.
She therefore urged political parties to scrutinize and assess their polling agents very well before appointing them since their activities could contribute to their victory or defeat at the elections.
Mrs Sackey, who was speaking at the Eastern Regional Inter-party Dialogue meeting at Koforidua over the weekend, said the EC attaches great importance to the work of polling agents because they act as watchdogs of the election process.
She appealed to all political parties and stakeholders to collaborate with the EC to make this year’s election incident free.
She said this election would be unique in the sense that it is the first time Ghanaians would be using biometric data to vote.
Mrs Sackey said it had become necessary for voters to go through biometric data to vote because the old method of verification did not have built-in mechanism for detecting multiple registrations and voting.
Mr Eric Bortey, Eastern Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) urged the party’s representatives to give adequate education to their polling agents to make the election peaceful.
All the political party representatives at the meeting pledged their support to the EC and assured to make the exercise successful in the region.
