Time-tested guarantor system must be maintained – Minority to EC

The Minority in Parliament has taken an entrenched position against the Electoral Commission’s new Constitutional Instrument (C.I) that seeks to make the Ghana card the sole identity for voter registration exercise ahead of the 2024 election.

The guarantor system, where an individual can guarantee the citizenship of a person so he or she can acquire a voter’s ID card for the purpose of elections, will be no more when the C.I is passed but the Minority says the guarantor system has been tried and tested over time and should be maintained.

The Minority believes the proposed C.I which will eliminate the guarantor system is a deliberate attempt by the EC to disenfranchise many Ghanaians.

Addressing the media, the Minority Leader, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson said: “For emphasis, the Electoral Commission was pushed to provide evidence to back the claim of so-called abuse of the guarantor system, the EC indicated that in the 2019 voter registration for instance, only 15,474 people, representing just 0.09% of the total of 17,029,981 registered voters, were challenged on the basis of the guarantor system.”

“This statistic is a very insignificant and immaterial percentage to warrant a total abrogation of the guarantor system, particularly at a time many do not have the Ghana Card. We say this because the National Identity Register Regulations 2012 (LI 2111), make room for the guarantor system when it comes to acquiring a Ghana Card,” he added.

Dr. Ato Forson wondered ‘what mischief’ the EC is seeking to cure by relying solely on the Ghana Card as a source document for the registration of voters when it intends to completely outlaw the guarantor system which constituted about 40% of Ghana Card registrations.

“We hold the view that the time-tested guarantor system must be maintained in our voter registration process and this position is absolutely non-negotiable. Common sense should tell any objective mind that a source document for the Ghana Card must be a source document for the Voter ID Card and vice versa,” he stressed.