General News of Wednesday, 29 May 2019

Source: rainbowradioonline.com

We cannot allow Jean & Bossman to plunge Ghana into civil war - Nketiah

Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of NDC Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of NDC

General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah says people have a perception about Jean Mensah the chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) and her Deputy Dr. Boossman Asare being members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).

He said it was therefore important for these personalities to do things or go the extra mile to diffuse that perception.

He said one can not easily underrate perceptions hence the need for the electoral commissioners to work in a manner that will bring confidence and ensure transparency and integrity.

Mr. Nketiah said the two electoral officers have shown gross competence and tendencies that may have serious implications for Ghana’s democratic gains.

To him, the two should have resigned from officers due to their partisan nature.

“If we were is a serious country, the two of them would have been pressured to resign from their positions.”

Picking on Dr. Asare he said, his comment that NDC was a threat to Ghana’s democracy was unfortunate, irresponsible and had the tendency to create tension.

He said the NDC cannot remain quite when there were attempts by the EC chair to manipulate the electoral data of Ghana to favour a particular candidate.

“We will not sit unconcerned and allow the recklessness of an individual to push Ghana into instability and violence. We will use every means available through the laws of Ghana to ensure she works within the remote of our electoral laws.”

He warned that if care was not taken, we could witness serious crisis ahead if the 2020 polls.

He said the EC has refused to address the concerns raised by the NDC over the.numver of persons èxepected to register in the limited registration exercise.

He said the Statistical Service has revealed that over 1.7 persons were expected to register in the United registration exercise and yet, the EC has planned to register only 500,000 with the remaining 1 million disenfranchised.

He said the situation is not only about the NDC hence the media should stop attributing the concerns to the NDC because when the violence begins, but every Ghanaian would also be affected.

The NDC has raised concerns over the decision by the EC to organize the exercise in some 250 district offices.

But the party says such a move would end up disenfranchising many qualified potential voters.

The EC plans to undertake a limited voter registration exercise ahead of the assembly elections later this year but the NDC has taken issue with the mode being used by the EC which will see the exercise being conducted in all the 250 district offices of the commission.

According to the NDC, while in the past the EC had deployed registration machines to 6,000 centers, o cover potential registrants in such limited voter exercises, the EC had currently planned to register Ghanaians who had attained 18 years or were unable to register during previous exercises at 250 centres, being the district offices of the EC.