'Let My Vote Count' Alliance launched
A multi-party alliance called ‘Let My Vote Count” has been launched at Dome near Accra to educate Ghanaians about the need for them to insist that their votes were factored into the outcome of national elections.
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Speakers at the launch of the group were made up of leading members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the People’s National Convention (PNC) and the National Democratic Party (NDP).
They urged the Supreme Court judges sitting on the case to ensure that justice was not sacrificed under the pretext of peace because the ordinary Ghanaian who stood in long queues to cast their votes would not take kindly to an abuse of their trust reposed in the judiciary.
Mr Owusu Bempah of the NDP whose address was preceded by a song by reggae icon Peter Tosh’s song ‘Equal Rights and Justice” said those seeking justice would not be intimidated by threats from some leading members of a political party that had benefited from the wrongs that went on during the December 7, 2012 polls.
He said the group was formed because they had come to realise that through some shady deals, votes that were cast for specific political parties’ presidential and parliamentary candidates were ‘stolen’ for others and that if that machination was not halted it would send a wrong signal to Ghanaian voters.
He said if that was allowed unchallenged very soon people would resort to all forms of unlawful means including the use of arms to have their way during national elections which would not augur well for the democratic process.
“Our votes are lost, they have stolen our votes” he stated and explained that almost all the NDP’s parliamentary candidates in the country suffered from the fraud which he said was orchestrated by a political party with the support of some officials of the Electoral Commission (EC).
Prof Mike Oquaye, a former Deputy Speaker of Parliament likened the alleged theft of votes to a declaration that Ghanaians were slaves.
He explained that it was only slaves who were not allowed to vote, therefore anyone who tried to steal the Ghanaian votes was likening them to slaves.
Prof Oquaye who danced reggae to the ‘Equal Rights and Justice’ song explained that Ghanaians were a sovereign people who decided through the ballot to select their leaders and expressed the hope that the Supreme Court judges would allow justice to prevail.
Mr Abu Ramadan, National Youth Organiser of the PNC, said all that the group was seeking was that the entire ballot that went through the right process prescribed by law must be counted and those that fell short of meeting the set standards for valid votes must not be allowed to count.
He said the group which was in support of the leading members of the NPP who through a petition were challenging the declaration of President Mahama as the winner of the 2012 election were good citizens who were setting good precedents for people in Africa who had always resorted to the use of arms and civil strife to register their protest whenever they felt cheated during national elections.
My Sammy Awuku, a Deputy Director of Communication of the NPP, was confident that the truth would come out and challenged the NDC to also come out publicly to state to Ghanaians that they would abide by the verdict of the Supreme Court, because the NPP and its leading members have made that pledge on several occasions.
He told the crowd that the Supreme Court would not be the first to overturn results because the reversal of results by a Supreme Court had taken place in countries such as Ukraine, Thailand and other parts of Africa.
Story by Donald Ato Dapatem