Conduct of election; a “dent to democratic credentials”- Mahama

John Dramani Mahama, Flagbearer of the opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has described the Electoral Commission and the incumbent president, Akufo-Addo’s conduct of election as a “dent to democratic credentials”.

According to him, the acts perpetrated by the duo in the conduct of the December 7, general election merits the tag.

“The way they have conducted this election; the government, President Akufo-Addo and the Electoral Commission, is a dent to our democratic credentials.”

Further calling for an independent audit of the Electoral Commission’s (EC) election figures, the opposition party’s leader considered it crucial in settling the dust of the election results.

“With the incompetence, the EC has shown, it will be useful for us to do a forensic audit of the EC’s own systems and numbers to come to what the final number from the EC is. This election, she can’t even get the results right. The declaration is all over the place”.

Mr. Mahama in his interview, further noted that, he will accept the outcome of the independent audit carried out by the Electoral Commission and will “be the first to concede and walk away”.

“If an independent audit is done by the EC which shows I’ve lost, I’d be the first to concede and walk away. But as long as that is not done, and I know that there was a deliberate attempt to subvert the will of the people in favour of the incumbent, it will be wrong for me, in terms of our democratic principles, to just leave it,”

 “As long as that is not done and we know there was a deliberate attempt to subvert the will of the people in favor of the incumbent, it will be wrong for me to just leave it because we will not learn the lessons of this election.”

Mr. Mahama also stressed that the audit is necessary to “bring closure to this by seeing exactly where the issues are”.

The election result declared by the EC on December 9, has been the bone of contention as disgruntled NDC bigwigs have threatened one court action or the other.

Following the revision of some total valid votes by the EC, observers have likewise cast some aspersions on the credibility of the results.

Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission (EC) has urged the leadership of various political parties to follow due process by treading on legal grounds to seek redress of any misgivings they harbor concerning the 2020 election results.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has held different protests in some parts of the country to express its displeasure over the conduct and outcome of the 2020 polls.

Contained in a statement, the Commission specifically addressed political figures from the two major parties in the country; the NDC and the NPP to go to the courts to settle their differences on the election results.

“The Electoral Commission is aware of contests to some parliamentary seats by both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress in a number of constituencies. We entreat the political parties to use the laid down processes established by law to seek redress to their concerns.”

It also indicated it was at the latter stage of concluding processes to declare the outcome of the parliamentary results of the Sene West Constituency.

Sene West in the Bono East Region is the only constituency whose results are yet to be declared by the Commission due to a dispute at the constituency level.