Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu
The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, yesterday dismissed claims by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that it won the December 7 polls at the opening session of the Fourth meeting of Parliament.
“Mr. Speaker this is not the Eighth Parliament and so I am not going to make much remarks except to say that for a political party that insists that it won elections should have in its hands the pink sheets,” he told the House.
The Majority Leader was responding to an assertion by his counterpart for the minority, Haruna Iddrisu, that they in the “NDC still had some doubts against what had been declared by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC).”
Mr. Iddrisu told the House that they had a duty to preserve our democratic ethics and values and to defend them, intimating that “that should reflect on the wish of the Ghanaian people or what they expressed on the December 7 polls.”
According to him, “there are few sticky points across the country or in many parts of the country,” and said that he personally observed in Techiman – Bono East Region that an electoral officer could not make available to a political party the “declared results.”
He claimed that the shooting incident “remains a negative blot on the conscience of our democracy,” and added that “to choose our leaders, lives should not be lost needlessly,” while asserting that there were still contested outcomes in some other constituencies, including Sene.
Majority Leader
However, the Majority Leader insisted the NDC had no basis to make proclamations of having won the elections, and argued “if you don’t have pink sheets and now that you have sent emissaries out there to collect and gather pink sheets, on what basis do you declare yourselves as winners?”
“We are not there yet Mr. Speaker, and I will not make further comments on that. People who want to stand on the foundation of truth should be equipped with evidence of truthfulness before they make proclamations,” Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said.
Mr. Haruna, on the other hand, indicated that the NDC would put up a challenge against the results of the election and added that “what we expect is that justice be done.”
“I have said that collation and aggregation of votes, C.I.127, passed by this House is elaborate. For instance in Techiman, Regulation 43 explains how aggregation and declaration are done.
“We expect that to be respected. So we in the NDC we still have some doubts against what has been declared by the Chairperson of the EC. Per arithmetic, when you work out, it gives you 100.295 per cent. That arithmetic error is not acceptable to us and we are not able to recognize the outcome of the elections,” he stated.
NDC MPs in black
The NDC MPs showcased a symbol of protest at the reopening of the parliamentary session by wearing black apparel to the House, saying they were mourning the state of Ghana’s democracy.
MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, who explained the wearing of the black apparel, said “dark clouds” had gathered over “lack of integrity – the discredited 2020 election.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House