2012 Elections is '419' - NDP

The breakaway faction of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), the National Democratic Party (NDP), has described the just concluded parliamentary and presidential elections as '419', the infamous code for advance fee fraud.

The party, led by former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings, staged a press conference in Accra Wednesday to register its displeasure about the outcome of the December 7 general elections.

Speaking at the press conference, the party's chairman, Dr. Nii Armah Josiah Aryeh, condemned what he described as the ruling NDC's blatant subversion of the electoral process by using cash inducement to compromise voters and electoral officials.

Dr. Aryeh faulted the process by which the Electoral Commission (EC) collated its results in the famous 'Strong Room' of the Commission. He believes the system is susceptible to manipulations. "Some people took advantage of the process to wreck 419 on us," he stated.

According to an enraged NDP chairman, the clear pilfering of votes from the NDP was unacceptable. He cited several instances where the NDP's parliamentary candidates had their votes slashed considerably by the EC's records.

He laid the blame squarely on the EC whose modus operandi has come under extreme criticism in recent times.

Almost all the contesting parties in the December 7 and general elections had complained about their votes being diverted to boost the figures of the NDC in the 26,000 polling stations where elections were conducted nationwide.

Dr. Aryeh recounted how in certain constituencies votes of NDP parliamentary candidates were fraudulently slashed by as much as 70 percent by the EC.

"The Electoral Commission should listen to these countless complaints," Dr. Aryeh told media men at the press conference. "

The biggest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has also tabled the same complaint, saying that the election that was won by incumbent President John Dramani Mahama was fraudulent because a chunk of votes duly recorded for its candidate Nana Akufo Addo was clandestinely converted to the tally of the NDC's John Mahama.

The NPP has taken its complaints a notch further, saying it will drag the EC to Supreme Court based on some "incontrovertible" evidence of election rigging in its possession.

Meanwhile, this is the second time the NDP has had cause to complain about the EC's mistreatment. Earlier, the EC disqualified the flagbearer of the NDP, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, from filing her presidential nomination forms.

The EC's reasons for the disqualification were that the NDP did not secure the required number of endorsements nationwide to sail through the nomination process.

Due to the hitches during the nomination process, the NDP could not file its presidential candidate. It only had parliamentary candidates contesting. None of the parliamentary candidates of the party won their seats.