A member of NDC communication team, Alhassan Suhuyini has called for a formal process to guide appointments to the Electoral Commission (EC), saying the country needs commissioners whose integrity and credibility can command public confidence.
Suhuyini said the ideal reform would have been to review the composition of the commission and establish a process for appointing people without obvious political affiliations.
“The proper reset, in my view, would have been if the president had the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and then institutionalise a process that will allow for the appointment of people that we can all have confidence in,” he said on Joy News’ Newsfile.
He said such a process should produce commissioners with “proven integrity and credibility” who are not closely associated with political parties.
However, Suhuyini acknowledged that President John Dramani Mahama could not easily remove existing commissioners to achieve that objective.
“We all know that the laws will not allow him to do that easily,” he said, adding that removing sitting commissioners could also attract objections from the international community.
He said the President therefore had to work within the circumstances created by existing vacancies, while the broader question of how commissioners are selected remained important.
Suhuyini said the Electoral Commission must demonstrate impartiality and neutrality because public confidence in its work depends on the perception that it can act independently of the political parties.
“The Electoral Commission must exude a certain impartiality. It must exude a certain neutrality,” he said.
