NPP shift Position On EC

After the demonizing the Electoral Commission, particularly its Chairperson, Mrs Charlotte Osei, and virtually rejecting any proposal from the election management body, hardliners in the opposition New Patriotic Party appear to have been humbled.

Perhaps, coming to terms that this confrontational stance against the EC was not adding anything to the party’s already wobbling 2016 campaign, the NPP has compromised its stands and is now ready to cooperate with the EC.

Hitherto virulent critics of the EC are now leading the chorus of persons showering praises on the Charlotte Osei-led election management body for taking bold steps to purge the electoral roll of ‘illegal’ registrants ahead of this year’s polls.

Surprisingly, the NPP which violently vowed to block the EC from going ahead with the polls, if their request for a new voter register was not granted is now claiming that they did that to expand the country’s democratic frontiers.

Campaign Manager of the NPP, Peter Mac Manu, who led the assaults on the EC, is now redefining the party’s posturing with the election management body “This business of NPP is challenging EC; that is not the case. We are rather strengthening and getting the EC to be on course as far as the laws, acts and others on elections in this country are concerned,” he stated on Joy FM.

According to him what seemed like a hard line stand adopted by the party on the Commission’s activities ahead of Presidential and Parliamentary election is only aimed at deepening the country’s democracy.

He explained that the NPP’s position on the EC was intended to whip everybody to be committed to ensuring that the EC conducts credible polls.

The EC only last week announced it has deleted 56,772 names of NHIS registrants from the electoral register in compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling of May 5 in the suit filed by Peoples National Congress’ Abu Ramadan. The apex court ordered the Commission to delete names of NHI registrants.

The commission has also published the deleted names in national dailies and on their notice boards at their various regional and district offices ahead of re-registration (which began yesterday, Monday, July 18. 2016).

This seems to have delighted the NPP, with Peter Mac Manu insisting “the EC is doing the right thing in conformity with the C.I 91.”

“We are all aiming to have a credible election at the end of the day, whose results will be acceptable to all; an election that will bring and generate more confidence in our electoral system and the Commission,” Mc Manu told Joy news.

Meanwhile, Abu Ramadan, who is a brother-in-law of NPP running mate, Dr Mahamdu Bawumia, says he is in talks with his legal team to challenge the Commission’s list of the over 56,000 names it says registered with the health insurance card. We may go back to court to debate the numbers,” he recently told Top Story host, Evans Mensah.