NDC catches cold over Akufo-Addo’s plan to make ROPAL operational

Even before Ghana gets into its election season, the National Democratic Congress is expressing fears of a possible rigging of the 2020 general elections, citing plans by Nana Akufo-Addo to get Ghanaians outside the country to vote as the basis.

According to the NDC which lost the December 2016 elections, the New Patriotic Party’s plans to ensure the operationalisation of the Representation of People’s Amendment Law (ROPAL) in the 2020 elections is aimed at rigging the elections.

“They [NPP] want to use this [ROPAL] to rig the 2020 elections because Nana Akufo-Addo has failed in his promises”, the National Communications Officer for the NDC, Solomon Nkansah, told Onua FM’s Ghana Dadwene on Tuesday.

Addressing the Ghanaian community in Togo, President Nana Akufo-Addo said government will be working with the Electoral Commission (EC) to ensure the law allowing Ghanaians abroad to vote in the country’s elections becomes fully operational.

“We passed the law and I can’t understand why 10-years later, it is dormant on the statute books,” he said and reiterated the NPP 2016 campaign promise to revive ROPAL.

Responding to the latest comment by the President, Mr Nkansah said “is ROPAL what we need? There is fear in the country, why must you talk about ROPAL for voting?”

“The EC has realized we [Ghana] can’t use it because things are not right in the country,” he added.

Mr. Nkansah explained that “we need efficient and reliable national identification data system to be able to determine the number of people in the country.

“They [NPP] have realized that things are not right so they want to use it to rig the 2020 election and he [President] should deliver on his campaign promises and do what Ghanaians want”, he added.

Mr Nkansah said countries that are using such systems for voting are those whose national IDs are “tried and tested and so they don’t fear when implementing such ROPAL,” indicating that same cannot be said of the system in Ghana.