The National Democratic Congress (NDC), the main opposition party, has called for a probe into how a single defaced ballot paper designated for the Eastern Region was removed from one of the Electoral Commission’s contracted printing firms.
Following the discovery of a leak in the original ballots, the Electoral Commission has mandated a recall and reprinting of the ballots for the Eastern and Western Regions. During an extraordinary press conference on Sunday, December 1, Jean Mensa, the chairperson of the Commission, made this announcement.
The Commission has thus stopped and rescheduled the special voting in the Eastern and Western Regions for Thursday, December 5, and recalled the ballot papers for those two regions.
The Commission claims that this is now required after National Security notified them that one defaced paper was removed from the Checkpoint Printing Limited Printing House. Although the disfigured paper was intended to be destroyed, it unintentionally made its way out of the company that has been collaborating with the Commission since 1992.
The NDC and PNC want the issue to be fully examined and the offenders dealt with, even though all major parties supported the EC’s decision to recall and reprint the ballots. Dr. Omane Boamah, the director of elections for the NDC, is calling on the National Investigation Bureau (NIB) and other security organizations to look into the occurrence.
After the EC handled the problem, Dr. Boamah told a radio station in Accra that the scenario undermines the legitimacy of the general election.
Despite the EC’s decision to reprint the impacted ballots, he stated that this measure “will never erase the entire risk.”
He also questioned the EC about the arrest of those responsible for breaking the seals on the ballot papers, stating, “In this case, we were not told whether the National Security or the Police arrested an individual or group of people and whether they are in custody.”
Dr Boamah therefore urged the country’s security agencies, who are responsible for protecting the ballot papers, to “immediately announce if they have arrested any culprits, and if so, who they are.”
“We are saying that the National Security, National Investigation Bureau, the Police, and the CID must let the public know who is involved,” he stated.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Joseph Asare
