It's laughable to say Electoral Commission can't rig election - Adongo

Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central Constituency, Hon. Isaac Adongo, has described as "laughable", assertions by the Electoral Commission (EC) that it is impossible for the commission to rig any election in favour of a political party.

The NDC MP, also believes the conduct of EC Chairperson, Madam Jean Mensa, can spark a revolution as she is fomenting “unnecessary” tensions with her posturing, thereby disrespecting the constitution and Ghanaians.

“When I hear comments like the EC cannot rig an election and cannot cheat for somebody I laugh. Elections are not rigged on the day of the election; it is not the day of the elections that rigging takes place”, he stated.

“...in other countries that there have been revolutions, it is not that they don’t have constitutions; they have constitutions but what happens when the anger of the people goes out of hands? That constitution that you are talking about is for them and if they feel that the way the constitution is being implemented does not inure to their benefit, you will see an uprising”, he indicated.

The EC Chairperson, Madam Jean Mensa, a couple of weeks, sought to assure the nation that it is practically impossible to rig the elections considering how the country’s electoral system was so extremely scrutinised and monitored by the political parties.

According to her, no official at the EC had that power or the force behind him or her to alter election results to favour one political party.

Commenting to the issue and the impending limited registration ahead of the 2020 general elections, Hon. Adongo, who was contributing to a panel discussion on Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji political show now on Pan African TV, claimed the EC is scheming to rig the 2020 election by making it easy for one political party to have easy access to the forthcoming limited registration exercise in their strongholds.

“If Ghana, as we know the demography, a particular political party stronghold has more members on the register because it has been easy for them to register, while the other political party’s stronghold is restricted or made impossible to register; you have rigged the election in advanced. Then you can have a fair election on the day of the election but the outcome will not be fair, so when we say you are going to rig an election as EC, we don’t mean that you will be stuffing the ballot boxes with ballot papers; we mean that you would have undertaken activities prior to the election and even during the election which pre-determines the outcome of the election and that is what we want to guard against”, he added.

He therefore charged the Electoral Commission (EC) to give a level play field to all the political parties in the upcoming limited registration exercise.

“We don’t want that to happen, so Jean Mensa must understand that for every step of the way, the totality of the views and concerns of stakeholders must be brought on board in order not to create an electoral process that has already pre-determined the outcome and expect is to now go and validate that outcome that you want to happen on the day of the elections; that will not happen”, he cautioned.