Can there be a free and fair elections but fractured results?

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• Yaw Gyeabour 12 years ago

  Why don't you announce Akufo-Addo as the winner to end it all as a non-fractured outcome of the elections? Kwasiato!!
  
  Can you not see the petition as fractured?

  Why don't you announce Akufo-Addo as the winner to end it all as a non-fractured outcome of the elections? Kwasiato!!
  
  Can you not see the petition as fractured?

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• Wiafe 12 years ago

  There is too much corruption in Ghana--so the windows for "tampering" with the results are wide. Even the judiciary is not above board.
  
  You can't have that much corruption in the system and expect election officials to be ...
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  There is too much corruption in Ghana--so the windows for "tampering" with the results are wide. Even the judiciary is not above board.
  
  You can't have that much corruption in the system and expect election officials to be the only saints in the country.

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• Kwame 12 years ago

  And that is why the analysis of information provided by the pinksheets is extremely important in determining the final results of an election. The EC should have system in place to quality assure the results. A simple excell ...
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  And that is why the analysis of information provided by the pinksheets is extremely important in determining the final results of an election. The EC should have system in place to quality assure the results. A simple excell program can be used to do this.

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• BRUTUS de ROMA 12 years ago

  What do you think the EC uses? Calculators. It is not a problem of additions here. The writer is talking about fractured results. If figures are wrongly put on the pink sheets manually by either genuine mistake or planned att ...
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  What do you think the EC uses? Calculators. It is not a problem of additions here. The writer is talking about fractured results. If figures are wrongly put on the pink sheets manually by either genuine mistake or planned attempt to deceive then how does excel or any other software to be used in the additions of figures detect that during the addition. Excel adds the figures you have entered. So the difficulty of adding is not what the "fractured results" being talked about here is all about. But how could you just be imagining that the EC uses some manual method of calculating its results. They use soft-wares and this may include Excel.

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• BRUTUS de ROMA 12 years ago

  I think you have made very good points here in the sense that all the processes and procedures before and during voting could be free and fair but genuine or intentional mistakes could occur during compilation and thus produc ...
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  I think you have made very good points here in the sense that all the processes and procedures before and during voting could be free and fair but genuine or intentional mistakes could occur during compilation and thus producing results that could be at variance with the actual. That was why when the NPP petition came up I was waiting to hear that NPP candidate got this here and here at so and so polling station but the figure was doctored and reduced to x,y,z; and that Mahama actually got this a,b,c at so and so polling station but his figures were padded up to a higher level and he was given this and that to his undue advantage. I was amazed and felt frustrated not to have heard not a single of such revelations or points made by the Petitioners so far about a single PINK SHEET or a single collated result sheet at Constituency level. So I kept wondering what the rigging and cheating being shouted by the Petitioners is all about. If all these elements of a "fracture" cannot be seen and had not been complained about or demonstrated by the Petitioners neither at polling station level nor at constituency or collating level, then I wonder why all Ghana money and time is being wasted on such an adventurous petition. Is it just to make history; show presence and display to the world; make it a plan to project Nana for another chance or project his preferred choice in the upcoming primaries within the NPP as is now being rumoured and carried on the lips of even top NPP party wigs about BAWUMIA (if he has not already caused a self inflicted wound to himself in terms of his integrity, image, reputation, credibility and character by being a "whiz-kid" in consistently being extremely and extraordinarily economical with the truth). So talking about fractured results this evidence of fracture is very lacking in the Petition and has still not been shown to Ghanaians as everybody thought was going to be the case. This makes the whole thing a foolish case and that is wny the verdict is very obvious and Dr Wireku Brobbey came out to speak his mind and is now being attacked by haters of the truth. Simply the NPP case cannot speak of any lack of the elements of "free", "fair" and cannot point to any real "fractures" in the results. The petition is simply a "foolish case".

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• Kojo 12 years ago

  I personally don't think anybody has to be a lawyer or have a PhD degree in politics to conclude how foolish and stupid this petition by the NPP is. Even just reading this essay by Mr. Arhin is enough for any lay person to co ...
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  I personally don't think anybody has to be a lawyer or have a PhD degree in politics to conclude how foolish and stupid this petition by the NPP is. Even just reading this essay by Mr. Arhin is enough for any lay person to conclude that the petitioners are just "cry babies". Yes, there can be a possibility of the things that the writer points out could happen at the vote counting and collating stage. But to me the solution to all these possibilities is simply the polling agents. These were people recruited by their parties, trained, and probably paid to go to the polling stations to make sure all the things the writer identified could happen, do not in fact happen so that the results to be declared will be what they actually are. I cannot from the bottom of my heart imagine any NPP polling agent standing there as a zombie for a presiding officer to enter a wrong figure, intentionally or unintentionally, and not complain, unless someone can tell me that the NPP agents were bewitched or blinded with some kind of juju. It's crazy. And so for Bawumia to say that their agents were mere observers was just a bold lie and surprisingly, the NPP supporters buy this. Yes, there can be mistakes in the various stages of the vote counting process, but there is also a quality control mechanism in place to check this possibility, and the single most important and effective quality control mechanism is the polling agent. That is why these agents were not hired by the EC, but by the parties themselves. If they therefore put their signatures to pink sheets to validate the results, and the EC accepts the results, who is to blame? FOOLISH NPP!!.

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• CALAMITY MILLS 12 years ago

  You deserve to be shot for your idiocy.
  
  Polling agents are not EC officials,and,therefore,can only observe the proceedings of the elections.In the 2008 elections,Dr.Sammy Ohene who was the NPP polling agent in Ho was serio ...
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  You deserve to be shot for your idiocy.
  
  Polling agents are not EC officials,and,therefore,can only observe the proceedings of the elections.In the 2008 elections,Dr.Sammy Ohene who was the NPP polling agent in Ho was seriously beaten by some wild thugs with impunity.
  
  The efforts to rig the 2012 elections started with the registration of voters.Minors were allowed to register with a wink and a nod from unscrupulous officials.But Kojo Afari Djan declared that once they have registered no law could prevent them from voting,even if they were minors.
  
  Who fed you idiocy,Kojo Tamakloe.

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• CONCERNED GHANAIANS 12 years ago

  DID YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THE WRITER WROTE? WE DOUBT ELSE YOU WOULD NOT MAKE SUCH IRRECONCILABLY NONSENSICAL COMMENT.

  DID YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THE WRITER WROTE? WE DOUBT ELSE YOU WOULD NOT MAKE SUCH IRRECONCILABLY NONSENSICAL COMMENT.

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• Paul Amuna 12 years ago

  You start well but sadly you contradict yourself. One the one hand you argue that there can be free, fair and transparent elections throughout the pathway of the process, but you spoil it all by then suggesting that despite a ...
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  You start well but sadly you contradict yourself. One the one hand you argue that there can be free, fair and transparent elections throughout the pathway of the process, but you spoil it all by then suggesting that despite all this, there can be "mistakes and malpractices".
  
  Mistakes we can all understand and accept as has been alluded to by the EC chairman himself in this petition. But can you tell us precisely where the malpractice comes into this equation?
  
  Why would the process work so well along the chain (human error and all) under watchful eyes, and then at the end, somehow a "malpractice" occurs? Please reflect on your own analysis.
  
  Your veiled attempt to throw doubt on the authenticity of the ballot in this case is both disingeneous and lacking in objectivity. It is very disappointing when intellectuals fail to remain true to their calling throughout an article, but somehow feel they must lean on one side when there is no need to do so. I hope you will take this criticism in good faith.

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• mensah abrampa 12 years ago

  Allowing minors to vote is a malpractice which could have affected the outcome of the elections.Over voting is not a mistake; it's also a malpractice.

  Allowing minors to vote is a malpractice which could have affected the outcome of the elections.Over voting is not a mistake; it's also a malpractice.

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• KK 12 years ago

  look at materiality and then you will understand what you are talking about because free abd fair does not mean everything is perfect.at least there is 5% margin error

  look at materiality and then you will understand what you are talking about because free abd fair does not mean everything is perfect.at least there is 5% margin error

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• mensah abrampa 12 years ago

  Obasanjo as leader of the Ecowas Election monitoring team is reputed to have been the person behind the group's recommendation to curtail the media in election observation in Ghana. This unfortunate and ill-conceived decision ...
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  Obasanjo as leader of the Ecowas Election monitoring team is reputed to have been the person behind the group's recommendation to curtail the media in election observation in Ghana. This unfortunate and ill-conceived decision contradicted the position of Ecowas and other international democracy observers.
  Again Obasanjo is said to be a loose cannon who cannot be trusted with power once he gains the ascendancy.
  In his Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) primaries at the beginning of January, 1999, Obasanjo won more than 70% of the vote to easily beat his nearest challenger,Alex Ekwueme. And was this not a dramatic turnaround for a man who, only a few months earlier had been so unpopular within his own party that it looked very unlikely he'd clinch the presidential nomination.Who says the man presided over a rigging free Nigeria? He only secured a second and final term after winning disputed and controversial elections on April 19. Tne man had no credibility coming as the leader of Ecowas election monitoring team so what the hell were we thinking when we accepted his leadership of the Ecowas team? Following the controversial verdict of "free and fair elections and later embarassing and undemocratic utterances by General Obasanjo at a meeting convened by Ecowas, the leadership regrouped a day after for a review meeting to consider the possibility of ending future election observations on its behalf by the former Nigerian president.
  In Ghana Election rigging has been on-going since 1957. We have the opportunity now to strengthen our democratic process or make the current petition a mere academic exercise. Because of chronic partisanship we sometimes choose to play the ostrich even when we are faced with issues that threaten our very existence.When Humpty Dumpty's overly cavalier attitude took him to scaling the village high wall some of the family gave him the once over, others kept the tabs on him,some gaped with consternation, others watched with nonchalance , some ignored him, others spurred him on but a few cautioned him. Humpty dumpty finally made it to the top and sat on the wall.Suddenly the inevitable happened . He had a great fall. You know the tragic end of the story. This could be Ghana in the years to come when we choose to do nothing about national dangers.

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