Jean Mensa must resign – Sam George

Samuel Nartey George, the Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram maintains that the chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Jean Mensa supervised an error-riddled process in the 2020 elections.

Sam George opines that with members of the two leading political parties citing irregularities in the 2020 elections, it has become untenable for Jean Mensa to continue in her role as chairperson of the election management body.

“The NPP agrees with the NDC that Jean Mensa bloated figures. Mac Manu [NPP’s Campaign Manager] said the figures Mahama got were bloated. Asiedu Nketia [NDC’s General Secretary] also said the figures Nana Akufo-Addo got were bloated.”

“So one person, one election you conducted, NDC says you bloated it for the NPP and NPP also says you bloated it for the NDC. Nobody can even say that you gave us the correct figures so you must resign,” the MP said on Citi TV.

Sam George made the comment in relation to the report by the European Union Election Observation Mission on the 2020 election.

The report stated that while there were issues with the overall conduct of the election, it met the international standard.

"The conclusion in the mission's final report is that the elections were efficiently organised, competitive, that voters participated freely in large numbers, and that the process successfully met a range of international standards," Mr. Nart said, adding that the overall conduct of voting was assessed positively in 95 per cent of polling stations observed.

"However, shortcomings already identified by previous EU election observation missions remain, such as the misuse of state resources, the abuse of incumbency, vote-buying, and unregulated campaign finances. These resulted in an uneven playing field."

The deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, Peter Boamah Otokunor urged Ghanaians to ignore the report as it is meant to give President Akufo-Addo and the EC ‘international credibility’.

“They failed to accurately report and discuss all the issues and all the steps…If you look at the procedure, they actually went through the back door even in Parliament and that is where they encountered several problems and they had to go back and forth three times before the instrument was properly laid. So that problem itself was something that was supposed to be reported by the EU.

“…You cannot make that conclusion, you would have to put all the bits and pieces together as part of the process then you can make a conclusive statement on whether it was free and fair.