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HEATED CONTROVERSY is anticipated in Parliament over the 45 new constituencies being created by the Electoral Commission (EC) as the House�s Committee on Subsidiary Legislation has rejected the Constitutional Instrument (CI) that is creating and re-demarcating the constituencies. The creation of the new constituencies had generated widespread controversy for weeks, with some legal attempts to block it. Civil society groups and some political parties had also cautioned the Electoral Commission (EC) over its indecent haste to create the constituencies, cautioning that it could lead to serious chaos and conflicts during the 2012 general elections. The Subsidiary Legislation Committee, chaired by Kwame Osei-Prempeh, which worked on the legal document for the new constituencies CI 73, recommended to the House to reject the instrument because it was full of errors that could create chaos during elections. �We wish to again commend the efforts of the Electoral Commission in facilitating and developing peaceful elections in Ghana. However, we must caution Members of Parliament of the harm to Ghana�s democracy that may be caused by the EC�s current plan to increase constituencies. �The current model does not advance the �one man, one vote� principle enshrined in the constitution, and the very suspicion of electoral partisanship is sufficient reason to steer clear of the EC�s plan,� the committee cautioned Parliament in its concluding remarks to the House. Copies of the committee�s report have been distributed to Members of Parliament awaiting debate on the issue today or tomorrow. The committee indicated in the report that for instance, over hundred electoral areas had been left out of the Constitutional Instrument or not put under any constituency. �The implication is that those electoral areas legally are not part of the constituencies and voters in the electoral areas stand to be disenfranchised,� the report indicated. For instance, in the Awutu Senya Constituency in the Central Region, which is being divided into Awutu Senya and Awutu Senya East Constituencies, eight existing electoral areas are not assigned to any of the two constituencies. Again, with Upper Denkyira East, which is an existing constituency with 29 electoral areas, only 16 of the areas appeared in the CI 73, leaving 13 out of it. In the Lambussie/Karni Constituency in the Upper West Region, Chugunuor, Kongo, Kangnal, Jirigan, Bakyegberi and Karni, which are existing electoral areas, are missing from the CI 73 and these errors are widespread in many constituencies. �The effect is that people in these areas may be disenfranchised and any aggrieved person may mount a challenge that these areas are not part of the constituency under CI 73,� the Subsidiary Legislation Committee warned. The CI laid in Parliament is due to mature on Wednesday, August 15, 2012, the last day of the 21 sitting days required by the constitution for the new constituencies to take effect. Parliament had to extend sitting for more than two weeks just to allow enough time for the CI to mature. In arriving at its recommendation, the committee also considered petitions from some Ghanaians and civil society groups including the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana). The policy think-tank gave about four reasons why the EC should not go ahead with the creation of the new constituencies. According to CDD, the EC appeared to have misinterpreted the law that granted it powers to review constituencies to mean increase in numbers. In its view, review meant altering boundaries of constituencies and not necessarily to increase the number. �The centre is opposed to the notion that a �review� is tantamount to an �increase.� The centre opposed the increment from 200 to 230 in 2003/4 and is opposed to the current proposal to increase from 230 to 275,� the CDD recalled, urging the Subsidiary Legislation Committee to reject the EC�s application in a bi-partisan manner. The CDD also noted that there was a subtle perception that the EC was favouring the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in creating the new constituencies. It further argued that MPs were currently without logistics and research assistants, pointing out that adding more constituencies would just worsen the situation. The rejection of the new constituencies by the Subsidiary Legislation Committee has set the stage for a possible showdown between the Majority NDC and the Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP).