Gov't sponsoring EC to rig 2016 elections - PPP

The Progressive People’s Party is alleging that the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana is wasting time challenging the decision by the Accra High Court which ordered them to allow Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom correct anomalies on his forms at the Supreme Court so they are able to successfully rig the general elections.

The Supreme Court will tomorrow [Friday] November 4, 2016 hear a suit filed before it by the EC challenging the ruling delivered by the Accra High Court on October 28, 2016.

The EC wants the Supreme Court to quash the decision because in their view, the decision is against several essential legal and public policy grounds.

But at a press briefing held at it party’s headquarters, Policy Advisor for the PPP, Kofi Asamoah Siaw in an answer to a question on whether they believe the EC will be able to organize the polls on December 7 following the legal suits said, the party is of the view that, the EC is deliberately shifting the attention of Ghanaians from scrutinizing the process for a credible polls so they successfully rig and allow the incumbent government remain in office.

According to him, the EC has purposely planned to rush things through so Ghanaians will be unable to monitor the electoral process, criticize and ensure that we have fair, credible and transparent polls.

"The EC wants to use us [PPP] as spoons in a game of chess. So they make us go to the Supreme Court so they divert everybody’s attention to there. And they have succeeded in turning the attention of journalists there…When journalists go to court, the whole nation goes there. So you follow us to the Supreme Court and on the other side, we have lost focus on what are the electoral processes.’’

In a barrage of questions Mr. Siaw quizzed, ‘’who is printing the ballot papers? How many companies are involved? How many ballots are they printing? How many regions is each of the companies printing for? When are the agents supposed to be at post? How long will it take to print the ballots? When are we establishing the nation collation centre? Are we going to procure fax machines that will fax the constituency results straightaway from the constituencies to the national collation centre?"

The former general secretary of the awake party posited, these issues should be of great concern for the EC instead of wasting time fighting them in court.

The PPP - he stressed suspects that the EC is on a mission to change the process, rush the balloting and printing of ballot papers through adding, "The EC will do all these gargantuan job in two weeks. So they will shift two or four million ballot papers to the Volta region; you have no eyes to see and no time to scrutinize it. They will also shift another five million to the Upper East region, another 10 million to the Upper West, how would you know?’’

‘’You will not have time to ask questions or scrutinize it. You will go to the EC’s office and they are nowhere to be found. They are supposed to be public servants but they treat us like they are a law over us. If we do not have time to scrutinize the process, auditing will be impossible,’’ and when that happens, they will issue a declaration form declaring the wrong person as President Elect.

‘’What is happening is a deliberate scheme designed by some people with the help of the EC to make sure that we have limited time to run this election, rush things through, declare somebody who is not deserving of the people of Ghana’s votes and declare him President of Ghana. When you decide to fight it, the National Peace Council will come in and tell you, don’t fight. They will bring the Police and Ghana Armed Forces in. It is a deliberate scheme sponsored by the state to make sure that somebody continue to be in power,'’ he fumed.