The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of registering fewer numbers in the party’s strongholds as against those registered in the strongholds of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the ongoing voter registration exercise.
The Electoral Commission began the registration exercise on Tuesday, June 30, 2020.
A Deputy General Secretary of NDC, Peter Boamah Otokunor speaking on Citi TV‘s current affairs show, The Point of View with Bernard Avle, said in NDC’s strongholds, the daily average of 100 persons at a registration centre is not met.
“In most of the areas in our strongholds, they just registered 70 and 80 persons in day one. They were not even able to do the 100 daily average and it’s very scary. But if you look at Ashanti Region, it appears that the machines there may be super-efficient or perhaps the workforce are super-efficient because comparatively, they hover around 100, 110 and 120. So these are things that we need to look at very carefully. It generates some form of suspicion which undermines the integrity of the process and we raised this concern with the Electoral Commission as well. We feel worried that in our areas, the machines were malfunctioning, but today, it’s been a bit better, but still, there is the need for us to look at the functionality of the equipment,” he said.
Mr Boamah further accused the NPP of busing registrants to register in other constituencies.
“The issue of busing has been very critical at several registration centres. The case whereby you have NPP people busing people to come into one constituency and register [must be condemned]. A clear example is the Ayawaso West incident on Legon Campus and this is not the first time. They [NPP] have been doing that for a long time. They go to nearby constituencies where they think they have limited strength and bus people from other constituencies there.”
Meanwhile, the Director of Elections for the New Patriotic Party, Evans Nimako debunked the allegation, saying most of the NDC’s strongholds are recording high registration numbers.
“I’m surprised he only mentioned Ashanti Region and not specifically about the registration centre he is talking about. But looking at Ketu North Constituency in the Volta Region, one of their strongholds, 14 centres are being used for registration and at the end of day two, as many as 3,161 persons have been registered.”