EC officer claimed NDC's copy of declared results in Techiman were burnt - Iddrisu

The Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu has indicated that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has not been able to retrieve the party's copy of declared results from the Techiman South constituency which will serve as concrete evidence to show that the party won that seat because it has been destroyed.

According to the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South, the returning officer at Techiman South confirmed to him that the declared results were burnt.

Speaking on the floor of Parliament when the House reconvened on Monday, 14 December 2020, Mr. Iddrisu condemned the spate of casualties recorded during the elections.

He said: “I was in Techiman personally and I was not pleased with what I observed. That an electoral officer cannot even make available to a political party declared results or results to be declared. That cannot be so in our multi-party constitutional democracy. Whether a returning officer or a district officer to claim somewhere that his copy meant for a political party, the NDC got burnt. We are still following through but what is significant is the loss of lives in Techiman. We had to visit one or two bereaved families arising out of shooting which resulted in loss of lives.”

He continued: “That remains a negative blot on the conscience of our democracy to choose our leaders, lives must not be lost and lost needlessly. There are still contested outcomes in some other constituencies across the country, in Sene.”

Mr. Iddrisu stressed that “we still have some dark clouds against what has been declared by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission.”

He, however, congratulated the newly elected Members of Parliament, “particularly the old ones who have had the privilege and honour of the electorate in their various constituencies to re-elect them to serve them.”

But in swift rebuttal, the Majority Leader and MP for Suame, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu condemned the Minority NDC for attacking the elections conducted by the Electoral Commission.

He indicated that the NDC must arm themselves with ample evidence to counter their claims.

According to him, without concrete evidence, their objections against the outcome of the elections do not hold water.

“If the people want to really stand on the foundation of truth they should really be equipped with the evidence of truthfulness before they make any proclamation because if you don't have the pink sheets, you cannot make any allusions,” he noted.