Wontumi threatens to lead 3m demo against EC

The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Bernard Antwi Boasiako, has vowed to lead three million people to demonstrate against the Electoral Commission (EC) over the electoral register.

According to the NPP man, who is affectionately called Wontumi, the current electoral register is bloated and full of inconsistencies, therefore, the country could not rely on it for free and fair elections in 2016. He told DAILY GUIDE that the NPP and other concerned groupings had continuously appealed to the EC to replace the voter register with a new and credible one, but their pleas seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

Wontumi said the 2016 general elections were fast zeroing in and so he would lead a massive demonstration soon to pressurize the EC to do the right thing by replacing the bloated voter register.

He made it emphatic that the NPP would not agree for the current voter register to be used for the upcoming national polls, stressing that the register would be changed so the EC should act fast.

Wontumi claimed that the bloated electoral roll provided a platform for the 2012 elections being rigged in favour of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), noting that the NDC’s rigging machinery would not operate in 2016.

He said his planned massive demonstration to get the voter register changed would start in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional capital, and it would be replicated in the other regional capitals.

Wontumi also alleged that credible information he was privy to indicate that some people were moving around the country registering cocoa farmers and collecting their voter ID Cards.

He suspected that the move was being engineered by the NDC in a desperate attempt to disenfranchise the unsuspecting cocoa farmers and also to rig the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.

The NPP regional chairman sternly warned those behind the alleged collection of the voter ID Cards of the cocoa farmers to stop, stating that the NPP was closely watching them and would pounce on them at the appropriate time.

Wontumi said the NPP would make sure that the 2016 elections are held in a free and fair atmosphere so that both winners and losers would not have any cause to complain.

He therefore charged the EC to refrain from adopting any dubious tactics aimed at helping the non-performing John Mahama’s NDC government to hang onto power, saying “No tricks will work this time.”