International electoral observers must be deployed—Mahama cries for free and fair elections
International electoral observers must be deployed—Mahama cries for free and fair elections
Former President John Dramani Mahama has called on international community to take an interest in the happenings of the country.
According to him, the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) was not comfortable with the processes leading to the upcoming elections and scared the party might be put to disadvantage.
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Speaking at the Bono Region today, former president Mahama indicated that he was curtailing his tour to return to Accra in order to keep watch on the reports of voter register challenges in the ongoing exhibition.
“And, therefore, because of the seriousness of the reports I am receiving from my elections directorate, I have decided to curtail my campaign in the Bono Region and go back to Accra to ascertain and verify the reports and to make the views of our party known to Ghana and the rest of the world”, he said.
In order to ensure there would be free and fair elections, former president Mahama appealed for international electoral observers to be deployed into the country to supervise the electoral process.
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“International election observers must be deployed long in advance to supervise the electoral process going into the election,” he said.
The former President explained that the increase reports of challenges with the voter register and the exhibition process was frustrating them and destructing the NDC campaign.
“Now, if there was an issue in compiling the register, where the codes of the various equipment were found to be duplicates, and it was necessary to issue voter cards, why were the political parties not informed.
“And the point even is, if you issue these new voter cards at your district office, how will the people whose cards are affected, know so that they can come and give back the old cards and give out the new cards?” he queried.
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Former President Mahama admitted that there was so much wrong going on and described the electoral commission and its workers as “legendary incompetents.”
“The incompetence of this Electoral Commission is legendary. We have held elections in this country, we have held voter registrations in this country, but we have never seen a situation where there is so much chaos and disorder in an electoral process.”
“It has the potential to create crises in our country and that is why at a point, when I spoke, I said that the Electoral Commission should be prepared to take the blame if this country descends into chaos and they dismissed me,” he said.
Former President Mahama lamented that the country might lose credible register and transparent elections.
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The NDC flagbearer stated that it was important for the international community to keep its eyes on Ghana’s electoral process so as to ensure the process is clean.
“As things are going, we are not comfortable with the process leading to the election and we call on the international community to take an interest in what is happening in Ghana.
We will make a major statement on this matter in due course, very soon but in the meantime, I wil suspend the campaign in the Bono Region, there are several constituencies that were expecting us today and tomorrow and the day after. I wish to apologise to them. As soon as this matter is addressed in Accra, I will quickly come back and finish the tour of the Bono Region,” he added.
BY JOYCELINE NATALLY CUDJOE
