Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) in the country have appealed to the Electoral Commission (EC) to facilitate free, fair, and credible Election 2024 accepted by all election stakeholders in the interest of the PwDs.
That would safeguard the prevailing peace and stability and consolidate the gains of the nation’s fledgling democracy.
According to Mr Yaw Ofori-Debrah, the pivotal role of the EC in ensuring a peaceful election could not be over-emphasised and asked the Commission not to also ‘rush’ in announcing the December 7, polls.
Rather, the EC must endeavour to be patient on putting up the election results that would be churned out, in order not to announce ‘faulty’ figures that could trigger misunderstanding and plunge the nation into political disorder and violence.
Mr Ofori-Debrah made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the side-lines of a day’s capacity training on legal advice for PwDs and other vulnerable persons in mining and cocoa communities, held at Goaso in the Ahafo Region.
The CePIL, an NGO which provides free legal services and advocacy training to vulnerable people and PwDs with support from Oxfam, organised the training, attended by about 50 PwDs drawn from cocoa and mining communities in the region.
Oxfam is a global movement of people fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice.
“All the political parties, including the EC must endeavour to comply with the rules and recommendations of the Inter-party Advisor Committee (IPAC)”.
“They must also remember that the PwDs are their brothers and sisters and in any political violence or instability, it is PwDs who are mostly going to bear the brunt”, Mr Ofori-Debrah stated.
He, therefore, called on the political parties and their followers to remain decorous in the electioneering, and avoid tendencies that could inflame passion and subsequently plunge the nation into chaos.
Mr Ofori-Debrah also advised PwDs to participate in all the electoral processes so that their presence and impact would be well felt, as key stakeholders in the Election 2024.
Earlier, Mr Alhaasan Iddrisu, a Personnel at the Legal Office of the CePIL, said the centre also offered legal service and advocacy to people affected by salt and sand mining, saying “we are trying ensure that PwDs and other vulnerable people in host mining communities get legal representation when the need arise”.
GNA
