EC Has Checks Against Electoral Fraud

By Nana Kow Blankson

May 25, 2013

Many Ghanaians including me would have been big losers if we have failed to listen to the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Asiedu Nketia, popularly known as General Mosquito when took the witness box in the on-going Supreme Court petition of the 2012 Presidential Election results.

I can say with all certainty that General Mosquito’s simple but well-co-ordinated answers to questions posed by his lawyer, Mr Tsatsu Tsikata who led him during his examination, can be compiled and named “Electoral Commission Regulations Made Simple”. If you are General Mosquito’s worst enemy you will not have any option than to applaud him except if you are called Sir John or Kofi Jumah.

General Mosquito did justice to the questions directed at him in court and the reviews coming out of his excellent performance are huge. Most NPP supporters never thought that General Mosquito has that ton of knowledge about EC laws and regulations, so they tuned in, in their numbers to listen to him thinking that he would entangle himself like Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, the NPP star witness who had no clue about what he was saying in court.

Most of the NDC supporters who have been itching to hear the NDC’s side of the story as far as the conduct of the 2012 Elections was concerned also tuned in, but both the NDC and NPP supporters were never disappointed as General Mosquito schooled everyone and left no doubt in the minds of listeners and viewers that he is much more credible and knowledgeable than the “Pink Sheet Professor” Dr Bawumia.

Many people are saying that if General Mosquito had given these EC tutorials which can qualify as “EC Guidelines 101 By General Mosquito” to the NDC Communications Team, and the team had relentlessly gone on radio and television and amplified it, Ghanaians would have stopped listening to the cock and bull story of the NPP by now. But I don’t want to veer from my topic for the day. In his explanation of the EC guidelines and laws, General Mosquito gave Ghanaians a rare peek to how the printing of ballot papers are done and the involvement of the political parties in this task, the distribution of the ballot papers from the printing houses to the regions, constituencies and the polling stations and how political parties are not left out in the policing of this assignment.

General Mosquito went further in explaining the role of polling agents in ensuring the sanctity of the elections during voting day, how the biometric is done and verified, how ballot papers are stamped before being issued to voters, how the biometric machines record what time each voter came to vote, how counting of ballot papers are done with representatives of each party around, how the results are recorded, declared and how pink sheets are signed by the agents before the results are sent to the collation centres.

If you listened to General Mosquito giving this free tutorial in court, you would be left in no doubt that the EC has in place adequate and solid measures to check against fraud from the time of the printing of ballot papers up to the time the results are sent to the strong room of the EC to be declared. And the most important thing that General Mosquito hammered home to the court was that in all these instances the EC involves the political parties in order to avoid favouring one party over the other.

No political party is left out of anything that the EC does in connection with the conduct of the elections, so if the NPP is feigning that they don’t know most of the things that the EC did in connection with the conduct and declaration of the 2012 Election, why are they the only party complaining? It is the same procedure that the EC used in conducting both the parliamentary and presidential elections.

If therefore, the NPP is okay with the parliamentary results, why are they contesting the presidential results? Why will an NDC supporter who has nothing to gain from Akufo-Addo or the NPP go to a polling station and cast his/her vote for an NDC parliamentary candidate and then turn round to poke his finger in the eyes of President Mahama by voting for Nana Akufo-Addo? What is so special about Nana Akufo-Addo that a staunch NDC supporter will go to the polls and decide to dump President Mahama and throw his/her weight behind Akufo-Addo?

It does not make sense which is why common sense has no place in Akufo-Addo’s environment. General Mosquito really educated Ghanaians and if you still believe that the EC has room for somebody to steal easily, then I don’t know which planet or part of Akufo-Addo’s hamlet you come from.

The whole world is watching with the International Community monitoring the Supreme Court proceedings much more than Ghanaians. The credibility and impartiality of the nine justices hearing the case is on the line. I, therefore, believe that no matter how much any of the justices may love one party over the other, they will not do something that will dent their reputation and stay in the legal books forever.

nkowblankson@yahoo.com