The Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has stated that the party is willing to participate in Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meetings if the committee returns to its original role as a consensus-building forum.
Mr Nketia expressed concerns that the advice and input offered by IPAC to the Electoral Commission (EC) currently go unheeded, rendering the committee ineffective.
He emphasized that if IPAC’s objective is to seek consensus, and it is established that consensus cannot be achieved through the committee, then attending IPAC meetings would be a futile exercise.
“The political parties that have been attending IPAC, are they not the ones who are joining us now in court against what the Electoral Commission has done? They went to IPAC, learned about what to do with this voter’s registration and everything they decided upon, the Electoral Commission came out to announce the opposite.”
“Everything you do, there must be an objective, there must be a motive. If the motive behind IPAC is for us to go and seek consensus, and you have come to the conclusion that consensus cannot be sought at the IPAC, you are wasting your time going to sit there,” Mr Nketia said.
However, Nketia indicated that the NDC is open to participating in IPAC meetings if they genuinely serve as forums for building consensus and making positive contributions to improve Ghana.
“If you are calling us to school, it means we are going to study. If you go to school and then you don’t study anything, would you continue going there and your parents be paying the school fees? No. That’s the reason why IPAC was established. So let us go back and use the IPAC to be building the consensus. But if IPAC is not going to be used to build consensus, then that meeting is not IPAC,” he added.
The NDC has boycotted IPAC meetings since March 2020, citing concerns about the EC’s actions.
IPAC is a forum where political parties in Ghana, along with the EC, come together to discuss electoral matters, provide input, and seek consensus on various electoral issues.
The NDC’s decision to boycott these meetings was a form of protest against what they perceived as unfavorable actions or decisions made by the EC, which they believed undermined the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
This boycott was a way for the NDC to express their dissatisfaction and seek redress for their concerns.
By boycotting IPAC meetings, the NDC effectively withdrew their participation and contributions from this platform, indicating their disapproval of how the EC was conducting electoral affairs.
Meanwhile, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has appealed to the NDC to return to IPAC, emphasizing the importance of the opposition party’s representation in decisions affecting all stakeholders.
The NPP urged the NDC to rejoin IPAC discussions for the benefit of the country.