Political parties and civil society groups are set to lock horns with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, over the commission’s administrative decision not to allow for realtime, public view of results from polling units across the country during the 2023 general elections, Vanguard can authoritatively confirm.
In fact, barring any scheduling issues, leadership of some political parties, represented by members of Inter Party Advisory Council, IPAC, Conference of United Political Parties, CUPP, and some leading CSOs in the electoral sphere are to meet with the leadership of INEC this week to seek clarification on some thorny issues bothering on how to ensure a free, fair and credible electioneering process in 2023.
Whereas INEC has already issued its regulations and guidelines for the conduct of elections, 2022, a three-part body of rules (Part I: Elections and arrangement for their conduct; Part II: Accreditation and voting procedure at elections; Part III: Collation of election results and making of returns; as well as an added schedule: Conducting elections during the COVID-19 pandemic and other health emergencies) to serve as the holy grail which would guide electoral officers during the 2023 general elections, there are a few concerns agitating the minds of political parties and CSOs regarding one or two sections of the regulations.
Already, INEC has made it public that it would upload all results to IREV, INEC Results View Portal.“The issue at hand is whether it would allow members of the public have realtime access to all results as they are being uploaded?
