Kofi Tonto, a political aide to Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Bawumia, has challenged the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to go beyond just accusing the Electoral Commission of wrongdoing and publish the list of discrepancies it claims to have found in the voter register.
Deputy National Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Osman Ayariga, has claimed more than 300,000 voters will be disenfranchised in the December 7 polls if the voter register is not audited.
Speaking on Metro TV, Osman Ayariga expressed worry about the Electoral Commission’s handling of the electoral register.
“Because the register forms the subconscious foundation of not less than 60% of the entire electoral process. If you do not have a credible register, then how do you expect a credible outcome of an election?”
Osman Ayariga slammed the Electoral Commission’s initial denial of these issues, although there is evidence of over 3,957 names deleted.
“The EC said it was impossible, but we proved them wrong. They said it’s not possible that you have some of these illegal transfers; it’s not possible that certain names will be deleted from the register.”
“If care is not taken, close to 300,000 people may be disenfranchised on the day of elections. And you and I know that once upon a time in this country, Nana Addo, won with just about 40,000 votes; I think Professor Mills also won with about 60,000 votes.”
Ayariga emphasised, “We cannot trust the EC to clean the register in our absence. They’ve been custodians of the register, and discrepancies are everywhere.”
But Kofi Tonto, who was on the same program, challenged the NDC to make their findings public for Ghanaians to judge if the party does not trust the EC to do a good job.
“In total, we are looking at about 300,000 issues they have. The EC is saying no problem; can you provide a list of these issues? The NDC says we don’t trust you. We have the list; we have the issues, but we don’t trust you, so we won’t give it to you. The NDC goes to the EC and does a presentation and gives a broad overview of what their concerns are. We have seen illegal transfers and illegal deletions of names. The EC says fine; give me the list of the issues; the NDC says no. So the question is, how is the EC going to help you resolve an issue if you won’t give the EC the list?
“So the first thing we have to establish is that why is the NDC adamant on giving the EC the list of errors? Why can’t the NDC publish the list if they don’t trust the EC? Publish the list of 300,000 people you have issues with. That way, the EC cannot temper with whatever you give them, and all of us can then see what the errors are; the NDC says we won’t give it to you. But even though I won’t give it to you, I want to compel you to do certain things. If you don’t trust the EC, you don’t trust Ghanaians? What stops the NDC from publishing the list?” Kofi Tonto asked.
