NPP attack on EC is unwarranted – Dr Amo-Antwi

Dr Isaac Amo-Antwi Chairman of Friends of Election Management Body (FEMB), on Tuesday condemned what he described as the relentless attack on the Electoral Commission (EC) and the personality of Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan since the declaration of Election 2012 results.

“The unbridled attack on the EC and its chairman is a threat to the core of Ghana’s democratic foundation...Ghanaians in general and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) leadership needs to tread cautiously in their quest to seek for justice.

“We must not destroy the nation’s democratic pillars in the quest for perceived justice...EC have played its role. The NPP must proceed to court and stop the populist warfare,” Dr Amo-Antwi told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra.

He said the FEMB was ready to defend the EC, stressing that the NPP should not blame the EC for their internal destabilization mechanism, which cost the party Election 2012.

Dr Amo-Antwi said chronicle of events indicates that: “NPP panic after its own collated results showed that they have lost the elections, their first reaction was to organise a press conference to announce that the party was winning with about 51 per cent.

“Afterwards its parliamentary candidate for Dome/Kwabenya claimed that 6,000 votes had been added to that of President John Dramani Mahama, which was later countered by the party’s chairman claiming it was 15,000 votes.

“Now the party’s General Secretary claimed it was one million votes whilst the Minority Leader claims its 150,000 votes; who should we believe?

“Later the party’s leadership attempted to prevent the EC from announcing the results with a claim of valid evidence, which later turned-out to be false, their real intention was to slap the EC on Monday with a court injunction, which also failed....for day’s now the party have failed to present its claimed evidence and continue to engage in populist street propaganda.”.

Dr Amo-Antwi said the NPP contested Election 2012 with a divided front – the Agenda 2016 proponent and Nana Akufo-Addo’s group....” these two groups worked across each other.

“It is very prudent in business and administration to plan well ahead. In politics planning ahead can certainly pay off. It can, however, be counter-productive when some selfish politicians connive to put up a candidate for an election way ahead, just because they do not want the current candidate.

“In NPP they call it Agenda 2016. In very simple terms, it is a set of agenda where by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s ambition of winning Election 2012 will be ditched, so that he cannot put up his candidature for 2016”.

He said the Agenda 2016 was to make Nana Akufo-Addo lose Election 2012 so as to have good enough reasons to replace him in 2016 adding "so it is case of let us lose this one and hope to win Election 2016”.

Dr Amo-Antwi also claimed the NPP campaign team was made up of personnel who were so complacent that they started celebrating the party’s victory well before the general elections.

“The so called Kufuor Kids were labelled anti-NPP making the party go into elections with a divided front as most of those in charge believe Nana Akufo-Addo had already won and started planning on how to teach the Kufuor boys and girls a lesson”.

Dr Amo-Antwi said poor planning and Agenda 2016 was the cause of the NPP’s defeat and that ”the leadership must face reality and apologized to its teaming supporters for leading the party to another electoral defeat and stop looking out for escape route."

He said the NPP was misleading its people attempting to write a petition with the so-called evidence to international bodies with the aim of discrediting the EC and the President-Elect, and advised the NPP to stop the populist venture, and go to court.

Dr Amo-Antwi called on democratic institutions, religious bodies, civil society organisations, and traditional leaders to come out and speak against the attack on the nation’s democratic foundation.