Former President John Mahama
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is already preparing the grounds for the rejection of the 2020 polls.
The party’s flag bearer, former President John Mahama, has announced that the NDC will not accept the results of any national poll that it deems ‘flawed’.
Yesterday’s commemoration of the opposition party’s 28th anniversary in Accra offered an opportunity for the flag bearer, whose efforts to stall the compilation of a new voters’ register have failed, to state, however, that the NDC would strive to ensure the country remains peaceful.
His assurance of ensuring a peaceful Ghana is in sharp contrast with his party’s general sabre-rattling with his blessing largely.
The electoral processes would not go unchallenged should there be lapses, he said.
“As a party, we have participated in every election in the 4th republic and we have a history of accepting the results of elections whenever we have believed in the integrity of the poll. As the leader of the NDC, I wish to serve notice that we shall do all in our part to make sure that the country remains peaceful and that the electoral process proceeds smoothly. But let nobody assume that we will accept the results of a flawed election,” Mahama pointed out.
For someone who showered praises on the Charlotte Osei managed Electoral Commission (EC) and called on Ghanaians to allow the commission to do its work as an independent body and that he as President could not interfere in its work, his new stance has had observers wondering what has gone amiss.
The ‘once revered’ EC, as he referred to the commission under Charlotte Osei, is intent on disenfranchising some Ghanaians referring to the elimination of the old voters’ card for the purpose of being registered for the new voters roll, he said.
This has cost the commission the reverence he previously had for the elections management body.
“Never have we in the history of this fourth republic experienced a situation where large numbers of our population are threatened to be disenfranchised because of the bungling inefficiency and perceived partiality of our once revered Electoral Commission,” he said.
The Supreme Court will deliver judgement on this subject, with the NDC having dragged the EC to the highest court for adjudication over the old voters’ card as a qualification for the purpose of being registered for the new voters’ register.
The NDC argues in its suit that the EC lacks the power to go ahead with its plans because it can only “compile a register of voters only once, and thereafter revise it periodically, as may be determined by law.”
The former President said “we all await the hearing of our highest court tomorrow (today) to determine whether we’ll have a flawed election or we’ll have an election that we have confidence in and that the will of the people have been properly expressed.”
By A.R. Gomda