NDC cautions media to refrain from declaring election results

Accra, Dec. 9, GNA - The National Democratic Congress (NDC), the main opposition party, on Wednesday night cautioned the media to refrain from usurping the power of the Electoral Commission (EC) by declaring a winner in the elections even when the final results had not been declared.

"We have the impression that the media is attempting to declare the results of the elections even before the EC and we find this very unfortunate", Mr Bede Ziedeng, Deputy General Secretary of the NDC told a newsmen at an emergency press conference at the Party's Headquarters to register its displeasure at section of the media calling a winner in the elections even when most of the results from the 230 constituencies had not been certified by the EC.

Mr Ziedeng told the newsmen that the NDC had been carefully monitoring the trend of the results in the Presidential Elections and with about 54 constituencies yet to be declared, the New Patriotic Party's Presidential Candidate had been credited with 53 per cent of the votes whilst the NDC Candidate had been given 45 per cent of the votes.

"The NDC notes that the bulk of the constituency results yet to be declared are from NDC strongholds in the northern Volta Region, northern Western Region, 11 constituencies in the Northern region and some constituencies in the Greater Accra Region where the NDC's collation indicates that its presidential candidate has won," he said.

Mr Ziedeng said it was unfortunate that the media had already declared a winner, when the likelihood of the Presidential Election going into a run-off was very high, as happened in the 2000 Elections.

He said under the present circumstance, the NDC would reserve its comments on the Presidential Elections until the last ballot had been counted and the official declaration of the results was made by the EC. The NDC Deputy General Secretary, however, said the Party would not accept the final results if some fundamental issues were not resolved.

"The NDC will make its final position on the elections known when the final results have been released by the Electoral Commission", he said.