NDC, NPP claim victory in presidential election
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have both laid claim to victory in the presidential election even before the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), who is the returning officer for that election, declares the final certified results.
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At separate news conferences in Accra yesterday, the two parties based their claims on what they asserted were results contained on pink sheets they received.
The NPP was the first to hold its news conference, which was followed by that of the NDC about an hour later.
Victor Kwawukume reports from the NPP headquarters that the biggest opposition party insisted that its presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, was in a comfortable lead with 53.79 per cent of the votes, judging from the results contained in the pink sheets received from its party agents at 27,577 polling stations.
The NPP Youth Organiser, Mr Sammy Awuku, told journalists that the party had also won a clear parliamentary majority with a minimum of 148 seats and a maximum of 170 seats.
He said with a difference of 1,690 "marginal" polling stations to be announced and a difference of almost 1,000,000 votes between Nana Akufo-Addo and President Mahama, Nana Akufo-Addo would still win even if all the votes cast at those remaining polling stations were added to those of President Mahama.
Delays
Mr Awuku expressed worry over the fact that it had taken the EC so long in making the necessary declarations.
He said the delay in the declaration of the results by the EC was the first time in 16 years that election results had been so delayed, making Ghanaians jittery and anxious, asking: "What is causing the delay?"
He alleged that the delay was calculated and suggestive on the part of the EC to overturn the decision of Ghanaians.
Advice
Mr Awuku warned that the NPP would not accept any massaged results from the EC and urged its Chairperson, Mrs Charlotte Osei, to, in the interest of peace and national harmony, announce the results.
He expressed the hope that President Mahama would receive the outcome with the same humility that Nana Akufo-Addo did for former President Mills in 2008 and after the outcome of the 2012 Supreme Court petition.
He expressed appreciation to the youth for voting for change.
The NDC, however, debunked the claim by the NPP that Nana Akufo-Addo was coasting to a decisive victory in the presidential poll, writes Kwame Asare Boadu from the NDC headquarters.
At a news conference, a Deputy General Secretary, Mr Koku Anyidoho, said the NDC had done its own analysis of results from 166 constituencies and President Mahama was leading with 50.6 per cent, as against Nana Akufo-Addo’s 49.04 per cent.
Mr Anyidoho, in reaction to Mr Awuku’s news conference, told journalists: “President Mahama is leading Nana Akufo-Addo and so the NPP should stop throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians.”
He said the NPP wanted to stampede the EC to declare the results “because they know what they have done. They are churning out figures and trying to bamboozle Ghanaians with wrong figures”.
He took a swipe at the NPP Youth Organiser for what he (Anyidoho) described as an attempt to incite violence in the country.
“It is absurd for Sammy Awuku to say he cannot control the youth of the party,” he said.
NDC abhors violence
Mr Anyidoho said the NDC detested violence and would, therefore, not take the law into their own hands.
Consequently, it would wait for the EC to go along with its promise to do an analysis of the pink sheets, he said.
He alleged that it had come to the fore that in a lot of polling stations in the Ashanti Region, there was over-voting and once the law said if there was over-voting the polls must be annulled, it was appropriate for all to wait for the EC to take a decision on the matter.
Mr Anyidoho saluted the security agencies for the work they had done so far and said, however, that “it is not over until the final declaration by the EC”.
He told international observers and the wider international community, some of whom he claimed were pursuing an agenda of regime change, that they would not succeed.
Meanwhile, Donald Ato Dapatem reports that tension has been mounting in Kumasi, with the NPP insisting that any further delay by the election management body in declaring the results is not good.
That, it explained, was because the people of the region who voted and witnessed the counting of votes at the various polling stations were wondering why their votes had not been declared and that was creating uneasy calm in the region.
However, the NDC described as deliberate speculation of uncertified and falsified results by the NPP, with the sole aim of setting the stage for the rejection of the final results by the NPP.
That, the Deputy Regional Secretary of the NDC, Mr Kwame Zu contended, was being fuelled by what he described as “surrogate NPP media houses”.
Ashanti NPP
The Ashanti Regional Chairman of NPP, Mr Bernard Antwi Bosiako, stated the concern of the NPP at a news conference in Kumasi, which was followed by an NDC news conference an hour later addressed by its Deputy Regional Secretary, Mr Kwame Zu.
Mr Bosiako expressed shock and dismay at the EC, intimating that the situation would allow some people to execute their ill-intentioned machinations.
He claimed that the NPP had received all the statements of polls and the pink sheets and was surprised that the EC was not putting out the results.
NDC
Mr Zu, for his part, said calculations by the party indicated that President Mahama had received 525,320 from the Ashanti Region, representing 29.26 per cent of the total votes cast, as against 1,220,243 votes for the NPP, representing 67.96 per cent of votes from the region.
He said the party was on course to attaining the one-million vote target.