NDC appeals to Judiciary to fast track electoral cases

Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, General-Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has urged the Judiciary to ensure quick and timely adjudication of electoral cases in order to forestall violence and confusion.

He said unresolved electoral irregularities and disputes were usually recipes for violence and chaos.

Election-related cases, he said, needed to be dealt with accordingly without any delay to maintain the country’s good reputation in the international community for conducting free and fair elections.

Mr Asiedu Nketiah was addressing delegates after voting in the party’s primary in the Berekum Constituency at the weekend.

The General Secretary urged the Electoral Commission to ensure knowledgeable and competent electoral officials were posted to polling centres on polling day.

He underscored the need for the Commission to come out with a credible Voters Register to avoid vote rigging and to defend the party’s stance against the provision of an electronic verification system, which would be used to verify the fingerprints and other particulars of registered voters.

“The whole idea is brilliant but what we (the NDC) are saying is that we cannot provide computers for all these 230 constituencies. Secondly, there is no electric power in all the constituencies so if we send the computers there how can they be run," he asked.

Mr Asiedu Nketiah explained further that Government was not in the position to also provide generators in all the constituencies as had been suggested by the New Patriotic Party.

He warned that the verification system would rather foment trouble because the system also required networking (connecting) in all polling stations to hook up to the Electoral Commission’s system.

Mr Nketiah said, studies conducted by the NDC did not convinced the party of the need for verification system, saying "we still do not support the verification system”.

Mr. George Atta–Boateng, a 32-year–old computer scientist, was elected as the parliamentary candidate for the constituency.

He polled 272 votes to beat three other contestants namely, Lawyer Stephen Asante, who had 107 votes; Kwabena Kyere, who got 97 votes, whilst Kwabena Taa Korang obtained two votes.

Mr. Asiedu Nketiah congratulated the delegates and urged them to be united and offer their unflinching support to the parliamentary candidate-elect to enable him to win the seat in the 2012 elections.