NDP slams Election 2012
The National Democratic Party (NDP) has described the just-ended general election as the infamous “419 Election 2012” because of what it called the numerous anomalies that characterised the exercise.
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“We believe that the Electoral Commission (EC), on hindsight, will be humble enough to accept its problems of mismanagement and go ahead to carry out major reforms,” it said.
At a news conference in Accra, to state its impressions on the elections, the Chairman of the NDP, Dr Nii Armah Josiah Aryeh, said although the party was not contemplating going to court to contest the results, it was of the belief that the outcome of the elections still hanged in the balance.
He said although it was painful to describe the elections as “daylight robbery and not democracy”, the outcome of the party’s own internal auditing of the results showed an unhealthy pattern in the collation of the figures in several constituencies across the country.
“This year’s elections had serious avoidable flaws, including the problem with the verification machines, the voting process itself, the delays and problems of collation of results in many constituencies across the country,” he alleged.
It was the belief of the NDP that in order for the nation to continue on the path of real peace, unity and stability, reports of malpractice must be investigated and the results used to strengthen the democratic dispensation.
Dr Aryeh, who was flanked by the Leader of the NDP, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, and other executives, said, “We support the review of all disputed election results and wish to remind the EC that it is the people of Ghana who cast their votes and their will should prevail.”
Citing instances when NDP parliamentary candidates were allegedly ‘short-changed’ during the collation of results, Dr Aryeh said some NDP candidates in the Volta, Western, Eastern and Ashanti regions were given lower figures than they obtained.
He contended that the country’s democracy was gradually becoming one for monetary influence and the massive swindling of the conscience of the masses.
He said because of that trend in the country’s democracy, “some governments are impoverishing the people so that during elections the people are given some pittance for their votes”, adding that that had a negative influence on the direction of the country’s democratic growth.
Soon, he said, people would not vote based on the sanctity of the right of choice, conviction, the capacity of the person seeking their mandate or the ability of the individual to perform effectively to uplift them from poverty and undevelopment.
He commended the many candidates of the NDP whom he called gallant who, in the midst of influences from other political parties, held on to their sense of morality.
Dr Aryeh called on the security agencies to work to uphold the core values of their calling, saying, “The nation’s peace and stability depends on their sense of neutrality and we know they have the men and women who can do just that.”
Story by Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho