Member of Parliament for North Dayi, in the Volta Region, George Loh, has blamed failure of the bill to change the date for general elections from December to November on bad faith by the Minority legislators.
According National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentarian, reasons proffered by the legislators affiliated to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for voting out the bill on Thursday do not hold water.
“For me it was in bad faith and Parliament failed in its duty to the people”, said Mr Loh on PM Express on the Joy News channel on Multi TV, Thursday evening.
The Constitutional Amendment Bill, which would have allowed the Electoral Commission (EC) hold the 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary elections on November 7, failed to garner the required two-thirds vote of Parliamentarians following opposition by the Minority.
In support of the hard line adopted by the NPP on the proposed change in the elections date, the 122 Minority legislators withdrew their support for the bill citing among other reasons the closeness of the proposed constitutional amendment to the elections date.
The NPP said it was not against the bill in principle but it was concerned that the EC would not be able to hold the elections in November because its calendar was packed.
The opposition party suggested the changed should be deferred to 2020.
However, speaking on PM Express Mr Loh, who is also a member of Parliament’s Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Committee, said because the issues raised by the NPP had already been addressed during stakeholder consultation on the proposed amendment, the only reason for the rejection was to enable the party buy time.
He cited a favourable report by the Committee on the Constitutional Amendment Bill to buttress his position that the Minority Parliamentarians were doing the NPP’s bidding without recourse to the duty they owed Ghanaians when they voted against the proposal.
“Let’s face the truth. The truth is that the NPP has other reasons for rejecting the bill. For me all I can say is that they don’t seem prepared for elections. They may have looked at themselves and seen that they aren’t sure and they want to buy more time,” he said.
The EC was pushing for polls in November to allow for sufficient time between declaration of election results, especially when there is a run-off, and the handing over of government to an incoming administration.
Meanwhile, the EC has said it will work towards holding the elections on December 7 in spite of the setback.
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