The Electoral Commission (EC) on Friday refuted allegations by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) that it is conniving with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to the rig the 2024 elections.
Emphasising that the electoral process was transparent and contains all the necessary checks and participation of all stakeholders, especially the political parties, it said, “rigging an election in Ghana is impossible.”
“Elections are won or lost at the polling station, and not at the Head Office of the EC. Parties should train their agents well to observe the process and not blame the EC for the outcome of the elections”, it said.
The Deputy EC Chairperson in charge of operations, Samuel Tettey, said this at a press conference held on Friday to address allegations made by the NDC General Secretary, Fiifi Kwetey, the day before.
On the accusations of “opaque” recruitment of Returning Officers and Deputy Returning Officers, Mr Tettey said the process was transparent because the EC publicly announced the vacancies and received 20,561 applications out of which successful applicants who had at least eight years of experience were selected.
While acknowledging challenges during the first two days of the ongoing voter registration exercise involving faulty machines, he stated that the process had since
been smooth, while mistakes in some infographics did not affect the actual number of registered voters.
Mr Tettey denied allegations of the EC busing minors to registration centres and attributed the insecurity and violence to mistrust between the NDC and NPP, who accused each other of attempting to register minors and foreigners.
The EC was also concerned that over 60 per cent of applicants in the ongoing exercise were identified through the guarantor system, which previously allowed underaged individuals to register.
On the Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi and Likpe (SALL) disenfranchised allegations, he explained that due to the newly created Guan District being carved out of Jasikan District, SALL could not vote for an MP in Buem Constituency in 2020, since by law one MP could not represent two different district assemblies, adding that the timing of Parliament’s approval of the new district caused the issue, not any actions by the EC itself.
Giving an update on the ongoing voters registration exercise, he said at the end of day nine 391,111 persons have been registered, representing 62.78 per cent of the commission’ projection to register 623,000 voters by the end of the 21-day exercise
