The flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Mahama, has confirmed the September 17, demonstration by the party to press home their demand for an audit of the voters’ register by the Electoral Commission (EC).
Addressing NDC supporters at Sampa in the Jaman North District of the Bono Region, yesterday, Mr Mahama, urged them to be at the EC offices to ensure the right things are done before the elections on December 7.
This appears similar to the governing New Patriotic Party’s “Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA)” tactic in 2015, including a riotous demonstration in Accra, to mount pressure on the Charlotte Osei-led EC to create a new voters’ register for the 2016 general election which Nana Akufo-Addo won by over one million votes.
The LMVCA pressure for a new register continued in the lead-up to the 2020 general election, despite the NPP’s victory in the previous poll and the replacement of Charlotte Osei by the current EC boss Jean Adukwei Mensah by President Akufo-Addo.
This was after a committee set up by the then Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo, investigated complaints and corruption allegations against Mrs Osei and two of her deputies, Amadu Sulley and Georgina Opoku Amankwa, for breaching procurement laws in the award of several contracts, prior to the 2016 elections.
The Convener of LMVCA, David Asante, became the Managing Director (MD) of the state-owned Ghana Publishing Company and has just been made the Parliamentary candidate for the NPP in the Nkwakwa constituency in the Eastern Region for the December polls, following the party’s decision to withdraw Joseph Frempong, over health concerns.
The NDC flagbearer, said there are many shortfalls in the voter register, and “If we desire for free, fair, and peaceful elections, then the Electoral Commission must up their game and do things right.”
He said they [The EC] must critically audit the register and put things in order early before the elections, and explained that the demonstration would remind the EC to do something about the register.
“So on the 17th of this month [September], NDC is going to demonstrate in every town that has an EC office. Our chairman [Johnson Aseidu Nketiah] has announced it”, he said at Sampa.
He urged “NDC [supporters], you wear your t-shirts, and you go and demonstrate to the EC office so that we can put pressure on them to do their job and do what they have to do to ensure a peaceful and transparent elections.”
The party chair, Johnson Asiedu Nketia on Monday, presented John Mahama’s nomination forms to the EC for the December 7 elections.
Mr Mahama, thanked the party and all those who endorsed his forms and reminded the supporters of the consequences of elections.
“If you vote well, it brings development and wellness. However, if you don’t vote well and someone who does not know governance leads the country, it brings hardship,” he said.
He said, Ghanaians have been subjected to severe economic hardships since the NPP came to power 8 years ago “but thanks to the 1992 constitution we have another opportunity to vote for change and economic freedom”.
He appealed to the people of Sampa to vote for the NDC and the Parliamentary Candidate and Member of Parliament, Frederick Yaw Ahenkwa, to reset the country and provide more development.
“I used your road, and when I win the elections, I will prioritize roads, especially the Berekum Sampa road, to boost economic life in the area and beyond,” he assured the cheering supporters.
The former President, John Mahama, is on a 4-day tour of the Bono Region, which will take him to 11 out of the 12 constituencies in the region.
On Wednesday, September 2015, an LMVCA demonstration, hoped to ratchet up pressure on the EC to create a new voters’ register, turned violent, when some of the demonstrators deviated from the planned route.
The group of demonstrators, mainly made up NPP of members, had rallied hundreds of protestors in Accra to demand the creation of a new voters’ register.
Draped in white attire and waving placards with inscriptions such as ‘No voodoo register in Ghana’, and ‘Ghost names votes for goats’, the protesters, enthusiastically singing and dancing, set off from the Obra spot and made their way through Kwame Nkrumah Avenue en route to the Hearts of Oak training grounds near the Arts Centre.
Guided by scores of police personnel, supervised by the Director General of Administration of the Police Service, Commissioner of Police (COP) Rose Bo-Atinga, the protest initially went on smoothly. But when they reached the Holy Spirit Cathedral, the demonstrators tried to veer off the approved route and head towards the office of the EC, leading to clashes with the police in which Gabby Asare-Otchere Darko, a cousin of the opposition leader, Mr Akufo-Addo, was manhandled.
The police used tear gas to disperse them, while arresting tens of them. The police had earlier secured a court injunction to restrain the demonstrators from picketing at the head office of the EC, but the protestors attempted to defy it, prompting the police to respond with tear gas and water cannons.
The demonstrators had wanted to present a petition detailing why the register should be scrapped to the EC.
In January 2020, the same LMVCA urged Ghanaians to rally behind the Jean Mensah-led EC for the compilation of a new voters register for the 2020 general election. A new register was eventually done.
The Convener of the LMVCA, David Asante, said the alliance had always advocated a new register in the past and was glad that the EC had now found it expedient on its own to compile a new register.
While admitting that the alliance was not a mouthpiece of the EC, it however said as an interested party and advocate for a new register, it would support the EC in its decision.
Addressing a press conference in Kumasi in 2020, a day after the Inter-Party Resistance Against the New Register held a demonstration in the region, Mr Asante, said the alliance would rally and educate the public on the need to get involved and get registered when the EC started the exercise.
He said it had become necessary for the country to have a new register as the current register still contained names of unqualified people.
According to him, even though the EC was ordered by the Supreme Court to clean the register of all applicants who used National Health Insurance Scheme card to get registered, “there are still names of people who used health insurance card on the register.
“The health insurance scheme is not limited to Ghanaians only but all residents in Ghana so holding that card does not make you a Ghanaian,” he said, adding a new register would be a victory for the people who lost their lives when the police unleashed unrestrained brutalities while exercising their civic rights.
The NPP Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako alias Chairman Wontumi, who was at the press conference, chided the NDC for describing its demonstration in Kumasi as massive and asked the opposition party to stop throwing dust into the eyes of the public and tell Ghanaians their alternatives to the policies of the current government.
