You wasted our time creating needless tension - Atik Mohammed to NDC

Embattled General Secretary of the People's National Convention (PNC), Atik Mohammed has jabbed the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for dropping its legal case seeking to stop the Electoral Commission (EC) from compiling a new voters' register.

The National Democratic Congress has dragged the EC to the Supreme Court seeking two reliefs.

The first relief is for the court to determine the constitutionality of the EC's decision to conduct the new voters' registration exercise as they believe it flouts their constitutional mandate while the second thing the party seeks in their suit is that the decision of the Commission to exclude an existing voters' ID card as a form of identification for the exercise is also unconstitutional.

NDC Makes A U-turn

The party, at a Supreme court hearing on Thursday, June 12, 2020, however, abandoned their first relief concerning the constitutionality of the EC’s decision to conduct the mass registration exercise.

Lawyer for the NDC, Mr Godwin Tamakloe announced the party's decision after the court held that regarding their rules, a party cannot seek a relief and also ask to be granted another relief in the alternative.

The Supreme Court will on Tuesday, June 23, deliver a verdict on the second relief about whether or not the electoral management body is obliged by law to accept an existing voters’ ID card as a form of identification for the impending exercise.

Hypocrisy of NDC

To Atik Mohammed, the decision by the opposition party to take out their second relief, exposes the hypocrisy of the National Democratic Congress.

''The hypocrisy embedded in their reliefs and the Supreme Court being that powerful forum exposed the hypocrisy that characterized the reliefs they were seeking...I would have thought that the relief they would seek is that the court should rule that the Electoral Commission shouldn't compile a new voters' register but you go there to say they shouldn't do it but even if they will do it, they should include the ID card'', he stressed and asked the party ''how do you expect the Supreme Court to rule on a matter like that?''