The New Patriotic Party (NPP) says it will not deploy agents to monitor the ongoing vote transfer exercise.
This decision follows the Electoral Commission’s (EC) directive to its district officers to deny party agents access to centres for the exercise after violence was recorded at some places.
Despite this, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) insists on deploying its agents to monitor the process.
NPP Director of Elections, Evans Nimako, stated that the NDC’s stance could interfere with the EC’s plans.
“For us as the New Patriotic Party, we will comply with the directives by the EC, except that we insist that what is in the act must be real. It does not lay in the map of the NDC to say that irrespective of what the EC has said, we are still going to keep our agents at these centres. In any case, the presence of the agents will not in any way stop a prospective voter who seeks to transfer his or her vote.”
“The issue in there is that parties upon request may be given copies of the transfer list. And then at the stage of the exhibition, parties may challenge through inclusion or exclusion challenges for people who are supposed to be on the electoral role or otherwise but we are confronted with a situation where until the NDC says yes, nothing must happen and this for me is not the way to go.”
He added that the NDC’s belief that the NPP is colluding with the EC to rig the election would not stop the party from winning the elections.
“NDC will not depart from this argument that NPP is colluding to rig elections. Elections will be conducted on December 7, 2024, and definitely, the majority of the voters, now numbering about 18.7 million, will vote massively for Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. We won elections in 2016 when Madam Charlotte Osei was EC. We won elections in 2000 and 2004 when Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan was EC and so for us as New Patriotic Party, it doesn’t matter who sits there as the EC boss. We are well represented in all the 38,622 polling stations. And I can assure you that come December 7, the candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia will win massively.”
Sompaonline.com