John Mahama
Defeated 2020 NDC Presidential candidate, John Dramani Mahama is rolling his sleeves ahead of the 2024 elections for a real battle, serving notice of a possible bloodbath.
According to John Mahama who is making a third attempt at the presidency after his defeat in 2016 days, the 2024 polls will be “do or die at the polling station”.
“We have learnt our lessons from the happenings during the 2020 polls. The 2024 elections will be won or lost at the polling station. It will be do-or-die at the polling stations,” he served notice of a potential bloodbath.
He explained that “The right thing must be done during the polls. We will win the elections at the polling station and won’t wait for collation centre results nor petition the Supreme Court if aggrieved”.
The former President made the statement at the Techiman-based Akina FM’s morning show on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, as he resumes the second phase of his ‘Thank You’ campaign.
He was answering a question on the NDC’s intention to police the ballots during what he describes as a “do or die” 2024 polls.
Ahead of the 2020 elections, Mr Mahama indicated that knowing that elections are won at polling stations, the NDC was recruiting lawyers and other professionals as polling agents only to turn round after the election to labelled the agents as illiterates who caused his defeat.
As of now, the NDC is still struggling to collate the results of the last two elections.
The former president repeated that he has learned his lessons after losing the 2020 elections and would put all measures in place to win on the ground and avoid going to the Supreme Court for redress in the coming 2024 general polls.
Already he has indicated that the 2020 polls lessons have been painfully learned and not forgotten.
The NDC flagbearer is on a nationwide thank-you tour despite his defeat in the 2020 polls to incumbent President Akufo-Addo who secured 51.59 per cent of valid votes cast as against his 47.36 per cent.
In total, the NPP’s Akufo-Addo polled 6,730,413 votes against the NDC’s 6,214,889 of the total valid votes cast.
Mr Mahama recently launched his anger on the Electoral Commission (EC) for refusing to receive the post-2020 electoral reform proposals submitted by his opposition party, saying the 2020 elections were not free and fair.
He said, “When you have these strange happenings and things like that happen it doesn’t give much confidence to the Electoral Commission that is supposed to be a neutral arbiter in terms of our electoral process”.
Mr Mahama noted that ”The posturing of the Electoral Commission before, during and after our elections has just shown certain hostility toward our party, adding that “when you have an election that everyone accepts and is happy with the results, it gives a certain legitimacy to even the person who governs”.
On the NDC’s rejection of the 2020 presidential election results, he said the widespread irregularities recorded during the election accounted for the widespread questioning of the legitimacy of the results by Ghanaians.
First Tour
Meanwhile, Mr Mahama is agonizing over his defeat in the 2020 elections, for the second time to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
However, it is not the first time Mahama is drumming home the need to police ballots after his defeats.
After suffering the 2016 humiliating defeat, Mr Mahama addressing the party members at separate durbars at Agona Swedru, Gomoa-Obuasi, and Dawurampong as part of his four-day tour of the Central Region, expressed doubts about the conduct of the December 7, 2016 polls.
According to him, he would win convincingly only if the elections were conducted in a free and fair manner.
He said “We are determined and the EC or any institution should not try to subvert the will of the Ghanaian people.
We have drawn the Commission’s attention to the many instances of infractions and actions that have not satisfied us.
“While we are expecting that the EC will live above reproach, I want to assure you all, that the NDC is well-prepared, and we will police the ballots from all polling stations through the constituencies to the regional and finally to the national coalition Centre,” Mr Mahama added after losing the 2016 polls.
BY Daniel Bampoe