EC creating trouble with Flawed processes -John Mahama

The flag-bearer of the National Democratic Congress, (NDC), Mr. John Dramani Mahama has again cautioned the Electoral Commission, (EC) about the worrying conduct of its activities in the preparations towards the general elections in December.

Addressing a rally at Abura in the Cape Coast North Constituency of the Central Region, Mr. Mahama reiterated his stance to reject results from a flawed electoral process undertaken by the Electoral Commission.

According to the former President, the EC is creating a problem and warned that if the December elections are flawed, the NDC will not accept the results. He noted, with worry, how several ears have gone deaf when attention is incessantly being drawn to the flaws being unrepentantly entrenched in the electoral system of Ghana. He told those who thought that the NDC was making too much noise that the NDC was not a trouble maker but rather a peace-loving organization.

“We, the NDC members, want peace, we want to make sure that all of us believe in this election so that if you win or lose you are prepared to accept the results, but when we speak they think that we are just causing trouble, but this can lead this nation to chaos. Nobody accepts results of flawed elections, and if the December 7 elections are flawed we will not accept it,” he stressed.

Mr. Mahama went on to state that everything the Electoral Commission is doing shows that we are heading to a flawed election in December. He raised issues with the new biometric verification devices brought in which have not been tested yet. He questioned how those devices are going to be efficient on Election Day when they have not even been piloted. He said that the current situation will result in a massive manual verification more than ever before, which was not the essence of the new voters register the EC compiled.

He emphasized that the EC is obviously creating problems especially in the manner in which it addressed issues concerning missing names in the register during the recent exhibition exercise.

He questioned how over 21,000 names could be missing from a register in a constituency only for the EC to claim it found 14, 000 after 24 hours but could not account for 7,000. He added that for the first time in history, parties filed nominations without a certified register and wondered who will be blamed if his nomination is invalidated as a result of his endorsers’ details changing in the register by the time the EC decides to certify it.

The NDC flag-bearer said he was clearly not enthused by the silence of people who only come to speak and find others to blame when there are problems, yet are pretending they are not hearing or seeing the warning signs boldly written on the walls.

Some members of the NDC at the event noted that the comments about the flaws and rejection of flawed election results were being emphasised by the former President with regularity because they believed there were problems that must be tackled before the nation is taken by surprise. “It is obvious the Electoral Commission is putting up an intransigent posture while the problems are not gone,” one member said.

“There is the need for the whole country to stand up for the right thing to be done to avert a disaster on December 7. The NDC wants peace on Election Day and not violence,” another party member added.