All set for Dec polls as Election situation rooms get inaugurated

The Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) in collaboration with the Civic Forum Initiative (CFI) has inaugurated the 2016 Election Situation rooms to monitor and report on issues pertaining to the elections, as well as the results.

The Election Situation rooms will serve as conflict mediation platforms and as coordinating centres for field observation of the elections by civic society and other international election observers.

Senior Research Fellow at IDEG, Kwesi Jonah said the Election situation rooms, which was first experimented in 2008, is part of activities to complement the work of the Electoral Commission and ensure peaceful and credible polls this year.

He said IDEG will be training coordinators to enable them to collect information meticulously.

“We are using new guidelines on how to gather the information and how to send information to Accra and how to link up with very important agencies that are connected to the election process,” Kwesi Jonah said.

Many have equated the Election Situation rooms with the Strong room of the EC, which collates results.

But Kwesi Jonah said the Election Situation rooms “have nothing to do with election results.”

“It’s the results that the EC declares that our various election observers in the field pass on to the situation room,” he explained on Radio Ghana.