The Coalition for Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) has advised political parties to trust the Electoral Commission’s (EC) ability to conduct free and fair elections.

According to the National Coordinator of CODEO, Albert Arhin the EC is neutral body mandated to ensure that elections are conducted in a transparent manner. However, if political parties harbour thoughts that the EC is politically aligned it becomes problematic.

Speaking on JoyNews’ The Pulse on August 12, he said “Let us have some kind of believe, let us trust the commission. The moment you have it at the back of your mind that they are always there to cheat, everything they do, you are going challenge it. So, let us give the respect to them.”

Mr Arhin advised the political parties to alert the EC when certain processes appear to be going wrong, that way the system can be improved rather than speculating.

The National Coordinator was optimistic that the EC would carry out free and fair election. He argued that in the past months the commission has carried stakeholders through every process as such the December polls will be no different.

“I think the EC is going to the be fair. The EC is going to be fair in the sense that, let us look at what the EC does, if we have observed closely every time the EC embarks on a programme, be it registration, be it nomination or whatever, they are always carrying along the stakeholders. This is done because at every stage of the process you can verify,” he added.