Snatching ballot papers shows Carlos Ahenkorah 'steals' his elections – Muntaka

Asawase MP Muntaka Mubarak has said he suspects fellow MP Carlos Ahenkorah has been stealing his victories in election because of his snatching of ballot papers in Parliament on Thursday, 7 December 2020, as they were being counted to determine the winner of the Speaker race.

The Tema West MP was given a hot chase by MPs-elect of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) after putting up that behaviour.

He snatched the papers upon learning that former Nadowli Kaleo MP Alban Bagbin had beaten Prof Mike Oquaye in the Speaker race.

Mr Mubarak, who also snatched a ballot box during the chaotic election process in Parliament, said even though the melee caused some of them “to go the extreme”, he thought Mr Ahenkorah’s action was condemnable.

“Let me condemn what my colleague Carlos did, I think that was the most absurd thing. It clearly shows, maybe, how he wins his elections: he steals them. Because if in the glaring eyes of the whole world, he could do what he tried to do, I felt very ashamed as a Member of Parliament that a colleague Member of Parliament could do such a thing”, he told journalists on Thursday following the swearing-in of the Eighth Parliament.

He said the chaotic nature of the process proves that “we ought to have democracy and all of us must begin to have the right mindset: that democracy doesn’t come easy; it’s about choices, it’s about people having the right to choose”.

“You cannot say you are practising democracy, yet, you want to, at every time, twist people’s hands”, the NDC MP noted.

In his view, “when you do that, that’s not democracy”, adding: “I can assure you that with this number of 137, 137 in this house, we will ensure that voting will be secret”.

“And, as I am saying, maybe, very soon, our voting will be electronic – where you can see where Asawase voted and where Bantama voted and where Suame voted”.

“We will push for those reforms to make sure that we subscribe properly to the democracy so that if the people of Asawase are voting, they should know how I’ve been voting in this house; have I been voting in their interest or, for the lack of a better word, I just vote stupidly because I’m either against the Executive or I’m with the Executive. I believe that if we do that, it’s going to help the development of our country a lot”, Mr Muntaka Mubarak said.