The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei, has said she does not regret accepting to Chair Ghana’s Electoral Commission, as the first woman, despite courting disquiet among Ghanaians for some of her decisions.
“I don’t regret it, it’s not an easy job and it wasn’t meant to be an easy job,” she told BBC’s Akwasi Sarpong in a Facebook interview on Thursday.
Charlotte Osei, who chairs the seven-member commission, has come under intense pressure for taking some decisions since her appointment in June 2015.
Her decision to re-brand the commission, which included the introduction of a new logo, was widely criticized, but she was adamant and defended the action. In 2015, some groups including the Let My Vote Count Alliance, hit the streets to demand a new voter’s register, claiming the electoral roll was not credible.
But a committee set up by the Commission to deliberate on the proposals, shot down the calls.
Parties in court over disqualification
Currently, several political parties have dragged the commission to court for disqualifying their flagbearers from this year’s presidential race on December 7.
As many as 12 presidential aspirants were disqualified for committing errors in the filling of their forms, an incident many have described as unprecedented. When asked by Akrasi Sarpong why she has been singled out for the bashing, Charlotte Osei explained that, such persons mounting pressure on her fail to understand that the decisions are not only from her but her other commissioners.
“People don’t understand that it is a commission with seven people,” she said, adding that such challenges are peculiar to electoral commissions globally. She also used the opportunity to explain to the world how ready the commission is, to hold a transparent and credible election on December 7, 2016.
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