Lydia Seyram Alhassan
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is considering various options to denigrate today’s by-election in the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constitutency and give the Electoral Commission (EC) a bad name.
Yesterday, elements of the party floated on social media a large quantity of ballot papers which they presented as EC stuff to be used to rig today’s by-election.
Old Vs New Logo
However, in their desperation, they did not take note of the old logo on the printed material which exposed their ploy. They did not also show the faces of persons purported to be behind the ploy.
During the last referendum, a similar unproductive attempt was made to pour water over the electoral exercise when they posted a picture of persons purported to be thumb-printing ballot papers.
Texts that they attached to the discarded ballot papers alleged that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was working with the EC to enable Lydia Seyram Alhassan, the ruling party’s candidate, to succeed her late husband at all costs by rigging today’s polls.
Nearby Bush
“The ballot papers, which were confirmed as the original and true copies of parliamentary election ballot papers from the Electoral Commission of Ghana, were intercepted by a group of guys around the Legon campus heading towards GIMPA in a nearby bush by a group of guys as you can see in the pictures above around 5pm yesterday,” the unnamed persons added.
They quickly added that NPP members who were behind the plot escaped after a hot chase.
Those who saw the social media post could not fathom why the matter was not reported to the police.
EC Denies Charges
The EC, in a statement released yesterday to rebut an NDC press release casting slur on the integrity of the EC, debunked reports that the party failed to lay hands on the proxy, transfer and special voters’ list.
According to the EC, the request was made on Friday, 25th January, 2019, when the activities of the commission had winded up.
“It’s significant to note that the author of the press release has unlimited access to the chairman responsible for operations and could have reached him without much effort.
“The Commission finds it surprising that rather than approaching the Commission to discuss this issue, the NDC chose to go public, accusing the Commission of bloating the register to favour a particular political party. These allegations are baseless and unfounded and so we call on the public to disregard them,” the statement said.
Continuing, the Commission assured the public that “the Ayawaso Wuogon register is clean and reflects the total number of valid voters in the Constituency. It’s not bloated as claimed by the NDC.”
Preconceived Agenda
The NDC’s hierarchy does not appear to be upbeat about today’s polls, and at the time of compiling this report, it was considering a boycott or court action.
The court option is informed by what they believe are irregularities in the voters’ register that has been approved by the EC for the election.
Register Discrepancy
According to the party’s legal team, the figure in the register from the EC is at variance with what has been approved for the by-election.
The NDC candidate for the polls is Delali Kwasi Brempong, who has been accused of making misogynistic comment aimed at denigrating Lydia Seyram Alhassan of the NPP.
He reportedly stated that the NPP made a mistake in selecting a woman (Lydia Seyram Alhassan) for the by-election.
Abraham Amaliba, a member of the NDC legal team, said on News@10 on TV3 Tuesday that the voters’ register for the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency, which the EC supplied his party on December 28, 2018, did not have the same population as what the EC released for the election.
He said the voter population per the register they received from the EC stood at 87,580.
“Then as the printing of ballots started, we were invited to observe the process. We got there to realise that the register accompanying the ballot papers to the various polling stations, that register had a voter population of 88,745. There is an addition of 1,165 ,” he claimed.
Upon realising the discrepancy, he claimed the NDC officially wrote to the EC to seek explanation over the matter but the Commission never got back to the party.
“We could go to court and place an injunction on the by-election, and it is also possible we could boycott the election depending on what the National Executive Committee will say,” he stated.
By A.R. Gomda