The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Offinso North Constituency, Hon. Ben Abdallah Banda says the Constitution of Ghana does not forbid the Electoral Commission (EC) from altering an election verdict if need be.
Mr. Ben Abdallah Banda dismissed claims that it is unlawful for the EC to make changes to the declared election results saying “we are all working with C.I.127 which says that declaration must be done by the Chairperson of the EC but it doesn’t forbid the EC if she has honestly detected an error and comes back to correct it.”
On the other hand, the outgoing MP for Keta constituency, Richard Quashigah was of a divergent view saying it is a blot on the credibility of the EC to not having its facts right.
“If a result was announced and then you [EC] come back to talk about corrections, I don’t think our laws permit that. This abysmal behavior that has been exhibited undermines the whole process.” Mr. Quashigah stated.
However, Mr. Abdallah still stood his ground with his argument that the correction, in any case, does not negate the fact that the President-elect has won more than 50+1 votes.
“Nevertheless, if the losing party is having doubt in the EC’s declaration, they should channel their concerns with evidence to court,” he added.
The arithmetical accuracy of the EC has been under criticism from a section of the public due to the changes the EC has made in the figures of the 2020 presidential election results.
Yesterday, the EC published a press release where it formally declared the number of confirmed constituency results for the NPP, NDC and others.
In the preamble leading to the figures for each political party, the EC stated that a total number of 273 seats has been confirmed and declared with one constituency outstanding.
However, public calculation of the numbers stated by the EC for each political party gave a summation of 274 instead of the stated 273 by the EC. There have been several social media comments to that effect, notable amongst them is the “Oh dear. Math is dead” comment from the Imani boss, Franklin Cudjoe.
This for some people re-affirms the EC’s lack of accuracy to have conducted a free, fair and transparent election.
Some policy think tanks such as Imani and civil societies such as CDD-Ghana have said that the constant changes and error rectification of the 2020 election results by the EC, gives legitimacy to the rejection of the results by the National Democratic Congress.
The Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Dr. Kojo Asante, in recent times, stated that the constant change in results by the EC is an embarrassment to the Commission and the country at large. He, however, stated that the changes will cause little or no change in who won the elections.
“It is embarrassing for the EC but in terms of the integrity of the declaration of the elections, I for one, is not saying we should have challenges with the EC’s declaration.” He stated.
That notwithstanding, One Ghana Movement has also called on the Commission to apologize for its “error-ridden” presidential results.
In a statement signed by its Executive Secretary, Emily Nyuur the movement emphasized that the EC should come out to “apologize and assure citizens that this will never be repeated.”
