EC Director Conspiring With NDC To Rig Elections

At the time the Electoral Commission was resisting desperate calls from opposition parties to call for IPAC meetings between the EC and political parties on the urgent matter of compiling a new biometric voter register for 2012, intelligence work undertaken by the New Statesman has revealed that a very senior official at the EC was the special guest of a five-day top secret strategic retreat of the ruling party, where the party came out with the Election 2012 slogan: ‘Victory By All Means - Do or Die!’

On Thursday, September 1, 2011, the Director of Research of the Electoral Commission addressed the Functional Executives of the National Democratic Congress and others on the process of biometric registration and, alarmingly, played a dangerous, allegedly criminal partisan role by educating the NDC strategists on how the whole biometric registration exercise may be fudged in favour of the ruling party. The meeting was chaired by Kofi Totobi Quakye.

Amadu Sulley addressed the NDC strategists, including Totobi Quakye, Kofi Portuphy, Aseidu Nketia, Akrasi Sarpong, Abaka Quansah and Yaw Djan, first at 11am and again, after lunch, at 2pm.

Maxwell Kofi Jumah, Asokwa MP, gave a hint of this unholy alliance at a Tertiary Students Confederacy (TESCON) of the NPP function at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi at the weekend when he said the NPP was very disturbed about EC’s participation in an NDC strategic meeting when it had declined requests to meet all political parties.

Mr Jumah told host of Joy FM’s “Top Story” Monday that issues discussed at the Shai Hills meeting were “the loopholes in the biometrics, and also the 251 constituencies [and] how they are going to demarcate those constituencies to favour the NDC.”

The Public Relations Officer of the EC, Christian Owusu Parry, denied on Joy FM Monday that any staff member of the Commission had attended any such strategic partisan retreat. But immediately after that, the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, was heard on the same programme confirming that the party had officially written to the Research Department of the EC and that a resource person was officially provided.

Mr Asiedu Nketiah said the party invited resource persons from the EC for a "training of trainers" at Dodowa on electoral rules and regulations. But, even the title of Mr Sulley’s presentation as appeared on programme made it clear that his duty was to focus on the biometric registration.

In fact, presentations on rules and regulations on elections were handled by three lawyers of the NDC, namely Larry Adjetey, who spoke on Constitutional Instrument 1967, and Martin Amidu, the Minister of Justice, who spoke on Legislative Instrument 1983. Kofi Attor, another lawyer, focused on constitutional matters.

The content of Mr Sulley’s presentation was very partisan and scandalously criminal. His first topic was under theme, ‘Electoral Process; Biometric Registration; Bio-Exhibition’, where he demonstrated how the entire exercise works.

The basic idea behind the biometric registration is to avoid double or multiple registrations. However, the head of Research at the EC spoke on the need for the NDC, with its allies in the EC, to undertake a ‘cloning’ exercise in their strongholds. This, he explained, means manipulating the central computer database to electronically undertake multiple registrations.

Crucial to the integrity of a biometric register is the process of de-duplication, where the captured data is screened to ostensibly discover and delete double entry of biometric data of individual voters.

But, the Director of Research at the EC gave a dangerous insight as to how this exercise can even be soiled. He spoke of the need to “pursue proper de-duplication in NPP strongholds.”

He told the NDC strategists, including national training officers and leading communicators, that biometric registration without polling station verification system will be “useless.”

But, he advised the NDC to “get the smaller parties to join you to speak against verification as useless, time wasting and tedious.” Meanwhile, Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, boss of the EC, said in a Daily Graphic interview a couple of days ago that so long as the money can be found for verification the EC is likely to welcome it.

Mr Sulley informed the NDC strategists that the country be divided into five zones for the registration exercise; 5,200 equipment will be used at some 23,000 polling stations nationwide.

Others who addressed the gathering on the NDC perspective of the biometric registration process, were Dr Quaynor, who spoke on registration, Dr Narteh, who spoke on exhibition, and Dr Ahmed Gedel, who spoke on voting and results transmission. Charles Aboah handled the issue of data protection.

Dr Gedeh was passionate about the need to reduce the voter turnout in the Ashanti Region from 83% to 60%. The national average for 2008 was 71%, he said.

Frightening details of what the ruling party intends to do to reduce voter turnout in NPP strongholds are available to the New Statesman.

Watch out for subsequent editions for more details.