Polls: Tell us 'who is winning, not who has won' – Mac Manu to EC

Campaign Director for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections, Peter Mac Manu, has asked the elections management body in Ghana, the Electoral Commission (EC), to announce presidential election results in bits and pieces as the collation of the entire results continue rather than wait for the entire results before announcing the winner.

According to him, the trend where the EC collates all the results at the head office before they are announced by the retuning officer for the presidential elections – Chair of the EC – breeds unnecessary tension, therefore, should be stopped.

Mr Mac Manu explained that when candidates get to know the results progressively, it will reduce anxiety among the candidates and their supporters.

Speaking at the Accra Dialogue on the theme: ‘Consolidating Ghana’s Democratic Governance: The Role of the Electoral Commission’ in Accra on Wednesday, 22 August 2018, Mr Mac Manu said: “Lack of openness and transparency in election results management at the Electoral Commission is worrying.

“The results are declared at the polling stations and they are collated at the constituency but why does it take so much time for the Electoral Commission to declare who is winning, not who has won because the winning is a process and it must be a continuous process.

“Let us say for the first one hour, ten constituencies are in, in the next two hours, fifty constituencies had come and that Mr X or Mr Y is leading; we need to be told.

“We never hear that from Ghana’s Electoral Commission. They keep it to their chest and I don’t know why they do that. That can create problems for us.

“In other jurisdictions such as Liberia, they kept releasing the results as the constituency [results] flowed in, so, when there were about fifteen or twenty constituencies to come, the Vice-President, who was contesting, had to make a press conference and concede defeat. The counting of the results must be progressive, you don’t keep it to your chest.”