61 Political Parties Reject INEC Draft Election Guidelines For 2019 Poll

By Kayode Olarewaju

61 registered political parties have rejected draft guidelines for the Conduct of the general elections released by the Independent Electoral Commission ‎, INEC, alleging that the new eight clauses were designed to ruin the elections.

This is coming ahead of the General elections starting from February 16, this year,

 This was contained in a statement issued and signed in Abuja on Friday by National Chairman of the Action Peoples Party (APP) and the Publicity Secretary of the Inter-Party Advisory Council, IPAC Mr Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere,

It said ” the Political parties demanded for the retention of 2011 and 2015 separate accreditation time and separate voting time to help forestall rigging with the presence of voters at the polling unit instead of INEC 2019 simultaneous accreditation and voting.

The statement  also demanded for the announcement of accreditation figures by 12noon on election day and recorded in a signed form and given to party agents before voting starts to guide against manipulation of election figures during collation.

Read Also:https://solacebase.com/2019/01/08/ganduje-upholds-suspension-of-kasco-md-by-house-of-assembly/

It added as part of the demands, ” stoppage of PVC collection 10 days to election and disclosure of the total number of PVC collected on polling unit basis to political parties. ‎

“Rejection of the clauses in the guideline which allow unduly accredited voters to vote especially the clause that allows voters with PVC whose name is not in the register of voters to vote

“Transparency in collation and transmission of results with accredited representatives of Election observers and political parties monitoring

“Rejection of  the creation or usage of secret polling units called voting point settlement and demand full list and location of such units

“Want INEC to meet with party chairmen before the final release of  the Election guidelines and  the redeployment of Amina Zakari as head of collation centre and replacement with Federal Commissioner in charge of Operation, Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu to ensure credibility and balancing

” Rejection of the use of former Youth Corps members and staff of federal government Agencies as Adhoc Staff”.

The statement said , the  Parties threatened to pass a vote of no confidence on INEC chairman if he decided to release the contentious guideline on Monday without further consultation with Political Parties Chairmen.