Amidu condemns attacks on EC
The anti-corruption crusader, Martin Amidu, has condemned groups affiliated to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for their uncharitable attacks on the Electoral Commission (EC)'s Steering Committee.
He accused the groups, Let My Vote Count Alliance and the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), for tagging "pubic office holders for purposes of destroying their reputation and hounding them out of public office."
Amidu said in a statement on Tuesday that the NPP groups have not substantiated how the former positions held by these persons would affect their function in the steering committee.
"The Let My Vote Count Alliance, which I perceived to be a non-partisan civil society organisation, stooped so low in making unsubstantiated charges of political bias against named constitutionally protected public officers", he said.
He intimated the EC has not faulted in the formation of the steering committee, and that groups should guard their public utterances against the commission.
“I am not aware that the Constitution prohibits any citizen of Ghana from holding any public office merely because he had previously exercised his constitutional right to freedom of association and associated with a political party whose existence the very Constitution guarantees”, the statement said.
Constitutional right
The statement said one’s inability to exercise his civic responsibility including voting at elections and referenda is in his view a disqualification for holding the most important public offices under the Constitution of Ghana.
Additionally, joining a political party of one’s choice and exercising the civic responsibility of assisting it to contest for political power was not only a guaranteed political right to every citizen but the very foundation of multiparty democracy guaranteed by the Constitution.
“The only safeguards I know is that the Constitution prohibits named public office holders from participating in politics or political party activities while holding those offices. One may be removed from such public office for breach of these constitutional prohibitions of not engaging in political party activities or allowing overt political party considerations to influence the discharge of one’s duties under the Constitution”, it said.
No credible evidence
Unfortunately, the statement said the Let My Vote Count Alliance, the Alliance for Accountable Governance and the young NPP office holders had not adduced any credible evidence to show that while holding their present public offices the named public officers had breached their oath of office or exhibited any unlawful or unconstitutional conduct as a basis for disqualifying them from being nominated to the EC’s Steering Committee, assuming that the composition of that committee is constitutionally justifiable.
It said the two groups could not even provide such proof of present political bias in the case of the representative of the National Service Scheme who was later withdrawn.