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Peter Mac Manu (middle) Npp campaigne Manager, addressing the press together with Freddie Blay,(Left) acting Chairman,and John Boadu, acting General Sechetary
With or without a new electoral roll, the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is confident of winning this year’s general election, with its presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, taking over the mantle of leadership.
It follows the Electoral Commission’s (EC’s) decision not to compile a new voter register ahead of the elections, scheduled for November 7.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, the Campaign Manager for the NPP’s 2016 elections, Peter Mac Manu, had what he called a ‘special message’ for President John Mahama and his NDC. “With or without a new register, your time is up; change is coming,” he noted.
“The Ghanaian people cannot wait to get rid of you” (referring to President Mahama) “with their votes. The Ghanaian people are not prepared to have this year’s elections stolen from them. The Ghanaian people are fed up with the eight years of needless suffering under the NDC. Ghanaians have had enough of your incompetence, your corruption and your deceit. They have risen to the challenge for change,” Mr Mac Manu, former National Chairman of the party, stated.
The NPP had petitioned the EC over the existing electoral roll which it said is not only bloated with foreign nationals, but is also flawed.
After meeting with various stakeholders last year, the EC informed Ghanaians that the panel it constituted had rejected the NPP’s claim of a bloated register and so saw no need for a new one.
Even though the NPP has a problem with the very basis of the EC’s claim, it says it is unfazed by the position taken by the committee or the elections organising body.
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Collective Ownership
According to the Campaign Manager, “Ordinary Ghanaians, students, teachers, nurses, bankers, carpenters, traders, builders, drivers, doctors, fishermen, hairdressers, tailors, farmers and the unemployed youth out there have all decided to take personal and collective ownership of the change that is coming.”
It was for this reason he said, “Ghanaians are ready to protect the ballot at their various polling stations and, we, the NPP are steady and ready to lead the people on this charge for change.”
He therefore condemned the EC’s decision not to compile a new electoral roll. “The EC’s predetermined position was reflected in its decision to put up a timetable of events and actions which had no room for a new register….. trying to find reasons to justify its already determined position.
“What is interesting, ladies and gentlemen, is that when you read the two reports – the Electoral Commission’s and that of the VCRAC Crabbe panel – both have come to agree with the NPP position that the current register is bloated. Not only that, they both agree, the panel more forcefully than the EC, that the existing procedures in place cannot be relied on to clean up the bloated register.”
In other words, Mr Mac Manu said, “The EC agrees with the NPP that the current register is incurably flawed and not fit for the purpose,” as contained in the Commission’s own detailed response to the NPP, which is published on its website, and the panel report, a copy of which is in their possession.
To the Commission, he indicated that the register is bloated for two main reasons: too many dead people on the list and the fact that the voter ID serves as a national ID card for everybody in Ghana, including foreigners, minors and presumably, fraudsters who need multiple identities to commit fraud.
Aside that, the NPP strongman said, “The EC has not been able to challenge any of the statistics we provided to show the register is bloated” and instead used all manner of phrases and excuses to dance around it.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
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