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Politics of Friday, 16 October 2020

Source: happyghana.com

Election 2020: I don’t hate Jean Mensa; I want her to do the right thing – Mahama

John Dramani Mahama, former president of Ghana John Dramani Mahama, former president of Ghana

Flagbearer of the NDC John Dramani Mahama says his criticism against the Electoral Commission chairperson Jean Mensa is not out of hatred for her but out of his desire for her to do the right thing as the election beckons.

He accused the Electoral Commission of treating the Inter-party Advisory Committee (IPAC) like an enemy in the run-up to the December polls.

He is of the view that the EC has erred on so many occasions citing the missing names on the voter’s register, adding that things would have been better if the EC considered the input from IPAC.

Mr Mahama stated that if the EC did not do their job well, it would lead the country into a ditch.

Speaking at Abura in the Central region as part of his campaign tour, Mr Mahama indicated that the NDC’s repeated criticisms were to put the EC on their feet and not to cause trouble.

He said “when we talk, everybody is quiet, when an issue comes then they’ll say it is this person’s fault. But we’ve given enough warning signals that the EC is creating problems. Look at this exhibition, names are missing. How can names be missing? “We’ve done registration, we’ve done an exhibition of register, sometimes they make a mistake with your name, or your name is pushed to some other polling station.”

“21,000 names missing, they say ‘we found the missing names,’ where did the missing names go?” They said it’s left with only 7,000, only one name missing and one Ghanaian. When we talk about these, they think we are just trying to cause trouble but we want the right thing to be done. Everybody who looks at elections in Africa, looks at Ghana as the standard, then what happened to the EC?”.

He went on “you go and sack the old commissioner, bring new people and you don’t know what is happening. I don’t hate Jean Mensah, I don’t hate Bossman Asare, all the commissioners I don’t dislike them. But I want them to do their job well and that is why we have IPAC. IPAC is supposed to advise you and now you treat IPAC as if it’s an enemy. This is a warning to Ghanaians. If we don't take care, the EC will lead us into a ditch.”