“In Techiman, for example, one of the radio stations asked the townsfolk to go to the Collation Center to protect the ballot for the NDC parliamentary candidate. This is what led to the chaos that ensued at the Collation Centre. Our Regional and District Officials indicated that but for the presence of the Security personnel they would probably not be here today “these are the words of the Electoral Commission during the Let the Citizens Know series.
It said In Savelugu the violence occurred at the police station and none of them had anything to do with the conduct of EC officials.
“Therefore, to blame the EC for the violence portrays a deliberate attempt to malign and impugn on the integrity of the Commission. Whiles, we collaborated with the security agencies under the platform of the Elections Security Taskforce, our responsibility was to conduct the elections and we did that creditably.”
The EC said “the Former President has also said the elections were fraudulent. This is not true. The elections were fair, transparent, and credible which have been attested to by local and international observers and the General Secretary of the NDC. After the declaration of the results, the NDC initially challenged the elections by stating that the elections were rigged and that they had won. But they went to the Supreme Court alleging no one had won. However, throughout the proceedings at the court, they were not able to provide any pink sheet to support their claim of fraudulent elections. In the full glare of Ghanaians when the General Secretary of the NDC was asked about the figures to support the Petitioner’s claim that no one won the election, he said they did not come to challenge the validity of the results.”
It said “When the General Secretary was also asked to tabulate the results during cross-examination he confirmed that the President won the presidential election with more than 50% plus 1 of the votes. , once more, the former president has accused the EC of being responsible for the violence that took place at Techiman. We state for the records that the violence was not caused as a result of the EC or its staff. More importantly, the EC is not responsible for security as the former President sought to portray. Nowhere in our laws or the Constitution is security one of the functions of the EC. To lay the security lapses at the doorstep of the EC is unfortunate. While we sympathize with the family members of the deceased, we reject any attempt to associate the violence with us. Again we call on the former president in the interest of our democracy to provide evidence that the EC orchestrated the violence. “
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com
