Jean Mensah Itching to Mess up Ghana’s Democracy with 3pm closure of Polls-Mahdi
The Deputy Director of Election of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mahdi Gibril has said, the proposal by the Electoral Commission (EC) to close 2024 polls at 3pm would mess up Ghana’s enviable democracy as many electorates would be disenfranchised.
The EC has defended its decision to shift the closing time of voting from 5:00 pm to 3:00 pm during the 2024 general elections.
EC Chairperson Jean Mensa emphasized that this adjustment aims to facilitate the transparent and orderly collation of votes by electoral officers in broad daylight.
However, the NDC Deputy Director of election told EXPRESSNEWSGHANA, that Ghana is not only Accra or Kumasi and that there are instances where ballots papers reach some constituencies late after the commencement of polls.
“The EC attempt to close polls at 3pm is not possible. Jean Mensah told Ghanaians she was going to declare results within 24 hours in 2020. We told her it was not possible. Was she able to do that? She says she is going to close polls at 3pm, but we are saying is not possible. Many people will be denied the opportunity to vote. There are places like Afram-Plains where ballots normally get to their polling centres late. And they have same voter population like Accra or Kumasi,” Mahdi added.
He cautioned that they would oppose the efforts by the EC to manipulate the election in favour of a particular political party, stressing that the EC should abandon the idea for it would not be interest of Ghanaians as such proposed change would disenfranchise eligible voters.
The NDC, he said, have resolved as a party that to go into 2024 with full force, stating, “We are going to an election to win. Rigging that election is a great impossibility and will be resisted with all force, so it behoves on the EC to assure all political parties of a transparent election.”
He added, that the NDC is prepared for free and fair election but would not tolerate any attempt of manipulation to rig the election in favour of any political party.
Source: expressnewsghana.com
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