NDC Flays EC of Deliberately Suppressing Strongholds

By Bernard Benghan

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of deliberately suppressing the strongholds of the party during the ongoing limited registration exercise in favour of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), ahead of the 2020 elections.

According to the party, the commission was deliberately suppressing its strongholds and enhancing the voter population of strongholds of the NPP with obvious consequences.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday in Accra, General Secretary of the NDC, Asiedu Nketia, described the exercise fraught with massive challenges in irregularities alleging that "our monitoring team reported on June 20, 2019, five EC officials were caught registering over 100 minors in the Municipal Chief Executive office at Birim Central Municipal Assembly.

"At the Ayawaso Districts Office located at EC headquarters, an NPP Tertiary Education Students Confederacy (TESCON) Executive was arrested on Day 6 with already completed registration materials in his Toyota Camry with registration No. GR 4015-10 and was taken to the Adabraka Police station.

"Adansi Asokwa and Manhyia Constituencies' new registration centres were created and equipped with offline systems manned by persons who were neither permanent nor temporarily EC officials, busily registering students at Toase Senior High School.

"We believe they were made possible by the commission's refusal to disclose the number of registration machines to be deployed and to which centres they will be used before the commencement of the exercise.

"One worrying occurrence during the registration exercise has been the exposure of illegal and clandestine attempts to register persons in several areas facilitated by grand collusion between EC officials and operatives of NPP," Mr Nketia lamented.

He expressed dissatisfaction at EC's inability to hold a credible and transparent limited registration exercise ahead of the 2020 elections since the exercise so far seemed to pint a calculated and well-rehearsed orchestration designed by the EC to intentionally generate confusion.

"The deployment of biometric machines did not follow any predetermined formula known and accepted by stakeholders to give assurance of political neutrality in the distribution of the equipment, we have received reports from our strongholds that some areas are being underserved either deliberately or inadvertently, while the strongholds of the government have been over-served, with its obvious consequences," Mr Nketia further alleged.

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