Electoral Commission To Revoke License Of 17 Political Parties

The Electoral Commission is threatening to revoke the licenses of 17 political parties in Ghana for failure to have offices across the 16 Regions in the Country as demanded by law.

According to the electoral management body, the 17 political parties have failed to open offices at the National, Regional and Constituency levels , which is contrary to the electoral laws governing political parties.

Per section 15 ( 3c) of the political parties Act 2000, Act 574, the Electoral Commission is mandated to revoke the license of political parties without offices at the Regional and District levels.

The Electoral Commission stated that, efforts by the Commission to get information from the 17 political parties has proven futile and in a bit to comply with section 22 of the political parties Act, the Commission will have to revoke the licenses of these parties.

Between May and June this year, the Electoral Commission embarked on an exercise to inspect the offices of all registered political parties in Ghana which revealed that, the 17 political parties have no offices at the National, Regional and District levels.

The Electoral further revealed that, it has written to the parties involved to explain why the EC should not revoke their licenses.

This decision by Electoral Commission comes after some 12 minor political parties in Ghana organized a press conference where it asked Ghanaians to support the Electoral Commission .

The parties also throw their support behind the decision by the Electoral Commission to use the Ghana card as the sole document for continuous voter registration.

some of the parties that are at risk of losing their licenses include, DPP, UGM, DFP, UPP, RPP among others.