Former President John Mahama says the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is bound to lose the December 2020 general elections with or without a politically engineered electoral roll.
Mr Mahama claimed Thursday that the Akufo-Addo government was manipulating the electoral process to its advantage, but said failure of the government will ensure it is defeated in the December 7 elections.
“No politically engineered register can save this failed government from the judgment of the people, from the inevitable defeat that awaits them in the next 165 days,” Mr Mahama said at a news conference.
According to Mr Mahama who is seeking to win back power from President Nana Akufo-Addo, “With or without a new voters’ register, the NDC shall win the elections by the grace of God”.
His comment comes on the back of Thursday’s Supreme Court decision rejecting the use of the current voters’ ID card and birth certificate as the proof of nationality to be registered in the upcoming voters’ registration exercise.
The NDC and one Mark Takyi-Benson had invited the Supreme Court to order the EC to accept birth certificate and the existing voter’s ID card as proof of citizenship to be able to partake in the new voters’ registration.
The court refused and gave the EC the green light to proceed with the controversial compilation of a new voters’ register for the December polls.
Per the decision, only persons with a Ghanaian passport or a Ghana Card issued by the National Identification Card can be registered to vote. Persons without any of the two documents can also get two registered voters to guarantee for them.
Addressing a news conference to respond to the court’s decision, Mr Mahama said the NDC strongly disagrees with position taken by the apex court, which he said, has created confusion in the minds of even legal experts.
“We are deeply disappointed and strongly disagreed with the courts over this outcome,” Mr Mahama stated, adding it has “indeed thrown the whole country into a state of confusion”.
The former President said the party’s legal team is meanwhile “examining this decision” by the court, but will await the full reasons for this judgment, which the court has set July 15 to give.
“Despite the well-reasoned relief we sought, the apex court of our land has given a leeway for the electoral Commission to go ahead with the exclusion of the existing voters’ identification card from the list of identification requirement for registration for the register,” he said.
Attempt to disenfranchise millions
He described the development as a systemic attempt to disenfranchise eligible persons from getting their names into the register to vote in the upcoming elections.
In the view of Mr Mahama, the decision to compile a new voters’ register is an agenda of the NPP government to disenfranchise millions of Ghanaians, claiming it is on that basis that proof of nationality has been restricted to “documents which are not accessible currently to millions of eligible voters”.
The government, he said, “sees its very political survival only through the prism of manipulation of the electoral process to exclude a section of Ghanaians who they suspect may not renew their mandate at the polls”.
He said it is regrettable that the EC which has earned respect on the continent over the years and should be independent “has today made itself a willing tool in the execution of this most diabolic agenda”.
By By Stephen Kwabena Effah|3news.com|Ghana