Skip to main content

ECOWAS Parliament Reinforce moves to elect members by Direct Universal Suffrage


The members of the Ad-hoc committee in charge of the election of Members of the ECOWAS Parliament through direct universal suffrage commence action in achieving it's mandate.    


The committee which met from 8th to 12th December 2020, in Lagos, Nigeria was set up to examine and propose mechanisms to make the election of Members of Parliament by direct universal suffrage a reality. 

The meeting was aimed at strengthening the knowledge of members of the committee on the challenges of electing representatives to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by direct universal suffrage. 


The meeting captured presentations by the Parliament Managerial staff on "The Evolution of the ECOWAS Parliament, a historical Perspective", "Justification of the election of deputies by direct universal suffrage" and "A Comparative Analysis of direct election systems practiced in the ECOWAS Region".


Aware of the role of an elected Parliament in facilitating the participation of the people in regional governance, the Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, Rt. Hon. Sidie Tunis, identified the election of MPs by direct universal suffrage as a flagship political program of his mandate during the inauguration of the 5th Legislature. 



Under Article 18 of the Additional Act of December 2016 on the strengthening of the Prerogatives of Parliament, the 115 members of the Community Assembly are elected by direct universal suffrage by the citizens of the Member States.


While waiting for this system to take effect, the National Assemblies of various Member States or the institutions or equivalent bodies elect the deputies from within at the moment.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reject List From Countries In breach Of 30 Percent Women Representation – Njai Tells ECOWAS Parliament

A Gambian representative to the ECOWAS Parliament, Honorable Fatoumatta Njai has challenged the Community Parliament to reject list of countries that are short of thirty percent women’s representation to the Parliament. Speaking in an exclusive interview at the official Opening Ceremony of the Fifth Legislature’s delocalized meeting of the Joint Committee on Social Affairs, Gender and Women Empowerment / Education, Science and Culture/Health, currently holding in Monrovia, Liberia on the theme, “ Empowerment of Women in the ECOWAS Region.” Njai said that some countries lack female representation in the Conference of Bureau, this according to her is disregarding the ECOWAS Rules of Procedure. “The Rules of Procedures mentioned that each member country should have a female representation at the Conference of Bureau. Each country has three members in the Conference of Bureau, so each country can at least have one female member which will be thirty percent representation. I thin...
Post a Comment
Read more
ECOWAS Parliament pushes for immediate solutions to region's humanitarian crisis Lawmakers of the ECOWAS Parliament says its seeking to invoke its parliamentary powers to resolve the humanitarian crisis across region. This is following the report presentation by the Parliamentary Joint committee on Political Affairs, Peace and Security and APRM/Legal and Judicial Affairs, Human Rights, Protection of the Child and Vulnerable Groups on the security of the Region. As contained in the report, the political situation in the Republic of Guinea as well as the political and security situation in Mali among others, calls for serious attention most especially as it regards to pre and post-election situations, and which also arises from the preparedness level for the presidential elections that are planned in 2020.  Honourable Snowe Jnr of Liberia responding to the report said that there is an urgent need for the ECOWAS Parliament to utilize its power ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Deploy Technology for free and credible elections- Goodluck Jonathan challenge ECOWAS

Ifeanyi Valentine Nigeria’ s Former President, Dr.Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has called on the ECOWAS Sub region to utilize the possibility of technology in our electoral process so as to have free and fair elections. He said this while making his contribution as one of the panelists at the ongoing First Extra Ordinary Session put together by the Fifth Legislature of ECOWAS Parliament holding in Monrovia the capital city of Liberia. According to him the reason why citizens of the sub region often times lost confident in their leaders is because they believe the use the power of incumbency to manipulate the electoral system so as to continue to perpetuate themselves in power even at the detriment of the people. He said that if full technology is deployed in all the stages involved in the electoral process the elections will not only be free and fair but it will completely eliminate the manipulation and rigging of election results.’ “When technology is deployed across board you w...
Post a Comment
Read more