Ex-security men must help ensure smooth polls – Rawlings

Former President John Rawlings is calling on retired security officers in the country to help safeguard the integrity of Ghana’s elections which come off later this year.

He has also advised Ghanaians to approach the November polls with “seriousness”.

“…I truly and sincerely hope that we will approach it (elections) with a lot of seriousness.

“I hope that our retired security personnel will bring their experience to bear to ensure that we have clean elections… Let’s just have a very clean elections this year,” the former military leader told sit-in-host Nana Aba Anamoah on the Morning Starr on New Year’s Day.

Ghana goes to the polls on November 7 to elect a president and parliamentary candidates. There have been concerns over the voters register as the main opposition party insists the current register is bloated and unfit for the elections.

The EC has, however, said it will not change the register but will rather clean it to ensure credibility.

Meanwhile, the EC boss Charlotte Osei has admonished Ghanaians to safeguard the peace and stability Ghana is enjoying now, and must not allow politics to derail it.

“We have only one country – Ghana – and in everything we do we must put Ghana first.

“We come to realisation that peace and stability is more important to us. We can’t separate our peace to that of the nation. We must all pray for this nation and put it first and realise that an election is just a contest and no point in throwing away our peace and stability. We have to get to that realisation and I know that when it comes to the crunch we’ll do what is right. We are committed to a peaceful election,” Mrs Osei assured Ghanaians.