Unusual Voting Trend In Ketu South

OBSERVED: UNUSUAL VOTING TREND IN KETU SOUTH....NEARLY 40,000 REGISTERED BUT DID NOT VOTE!

As the election returns trickled in, one of my nephews had his sight trained on the Ketu South Constituency Parliamentary results because his 'friend' and 'mate' Fiifi Kwetey, a Deputy Finance Minister was a Parliamentary candidate for the NDC. I assured my nephew that Ketu South was perhaps the most safest place for an NDC candidate. But, uncle, "we want a 100% win", my nephew whined!

In fact, my nephew had traveled to Denu and Aflao to campaign for Mr. Kwetey! In the end, Kwetey did not get the 100% but he won by a whopping 77,832 to NPP candidate's 3,956, according to results posted at the Ghana Electoral Commission's (EC) website as of December 13, 2012. Ghana's Parliament will not be the same with such reasonable men as lawmakers, such as the aforementioned Kwetey and Nii Lantey Vanderpuye (who claimed he put roadblocks on a road to forcibly intercept a presidential convoy, and let then president Mills to step out of his car to greet people!; all that done so Nii would impress his 'area boys'!)

In the presidential voting, Ketu South voted 81,880 for the Mahama; and 5,165 for the Akufo Addo, according to JOYFM's Election site. In both parliamentary and presidential voting, other parties and independents scored in the hundreds. In fact, on the EC website, other parties had zero; though JOYFM and other websites give them a few hundreds. The discrepancy between EC and others such as JOYFM and Peace FM is telling!

What ALARMS me, however, is that Ketu South Constituency leads the nation in perhaps the number of registered voters who DID NOT bother to cast a vote on December 7, 2012! According to the EC website, Ketu South Constituency has 126,659 registered voters. This implies that nearly 40,000 registered voters of Ketu South DID NOT CAST A BALLOT on December 7!

WHY? I asked my nephew what explains the big difference in population between Ketu South and Ketu North. His response was the age-old adage: "Wofa, travel and see"!

By the way, in contrast, in the neighbouring Ketu North Constituency, the entire registered voters, according to the EC is 60,671. Perhaps Ketu South has great population centers that we may never know of, such as: Klikor; Agbozume; and Blekusu!!!!

Why did nearly 40,000 registered voters NOT cast a vote in Ketu South Constituency. Or: Did Ketu South register people from across the border in Togo who did not make it to Denu and Aflao in time to vote? Did Ketu South register the unborn who were NOT delivered early enough to cast a vote on December 7? Did the Biometric voting electronic system thwart any effort at hundred per cent electoral fraud in Ketu South? Does Ketu South represent a microcosm of the electoral registration fraud that has permeated the process in Ghana? Is Ketu South the poster child of electoral fraud in Ghana?

I am sending my nephew on a trip to locate all those 40,000 people in the Ketu South Constituency who did not vote on December 7. As only a nephew would, my nephew has consented to embark on this wild goose chase! Fiifi Kwetey is not happy about my intentions!!!

I congratulate John Dramani Mahama and Fifi Kwetey on their easy win in Ketu South Constituency; and pray that they assist all and sundry, including the 40,000 people who obviously truncated the democratic in Ketu South!

Or is, as they say in the American South: Grandma, "we was robbed"!!!

Kofi Ellison

e-mail: sikadwa@justice.com

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