The National Democratic Congress has warned the New Patriotic Party to desist from stampeding Ghana’s Electoral Commission into declaring presidential results of Wednesday’s general elections ahead of the agreed time.
General Secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketia told a news conference in Accra Thursday evening that the EC must be given the room to implement the agreed electoral reforms agreed at IPAC between all parties ahead of the general elections.
According to him, it was agreed that while there will be an electronic transmission of results from the various constituency collation centres to the National Collation Centre in Accra, the EC cannot go ahead to certify and declare results until it receives hard copies of pink sheets to match the figures.
“We made it very clear that since electronic transmission can be compromised, the EC will not declare results until they have had hard copies and have done the comparison and found out that indeed the results contained in the transmitted copies tallies with the hard copies of the pink sheets and the collation sheets,” he said.
He said it was also agreed that the EC will declaring results within 72 hours after the close of polls, hence was surprised that the NPP called a news conference to demand the release of the results less than 24 hours after the close of the poll.
“It is against this background that we felt the NPP should be called to order when they were trying to stampede the EC to declare results in less than 24 hours after the close of poll. We thought that it was not in keeping with due process and in keeping with the agreements we had entered into at IPAC with the EC” Mr Asiedu Nketia said.
He added: “We also feel that the EC should be given time and must have the opportunity to implement the decision of the reform Committee and IPAC”.
The General Secretary said the NDC whose candidate, President John Dramani Mahama is seeking a second term, remains committed to dues process and all agreements it has entered into at IPAC.
For the party, he said they are “eagerly waiting for the EC to do their work diligently and timorously that is within the 72 hours” to tell Ghanaians who among the seven presidential candidates got the mandate of the people to govern the country for the next four years.
Sounding confident, Mr Asiedu Nketia said per their tabulation of results from their agents across the country, the NDC is on the road to victory.
“From the results from our collation system, we are confident that NDC is cruising to victory. We are however unable to put out figures because of our commitment,” he said.
He has urged all party members and sympathizers to remain confident, adding “If the trend we’ve observed continue, it’s likely his Excellency President Mahama will remain the president of Ghana”.
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