Ghana’s main opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC), said Thursday it will not accept the results of the general elections announced by the Electoral Commission (EC).
The commission gave victory to incumbent President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Minority Leader in Parliament Haruna Iddrisu said the NDC has “overwhelming” evidence that proved that the party’s candidate, John Dramani Mahama, won the poll.
The NDC said it was heading to court to challenge the election results over alleged overwhelming evidence of election corruption, which it said made it impossible to accept the result.
“As a party, we have had extensive consultations and detailed analysis of the outcome of the elections as announced by Jean Mensa, the EC chair.
“We have come to only one irresistible conclusion, that it is a flawed, discredited election and therefore we reject the presidential result without any reservation,” Iddrisu said.
Akufo-Addo will begin a second four-year term on January 7, 2021.
The EC’s collated results showed that Akufo-Addo polled 6,730,413 votes (51.59%) against former President Mahama’s 6,214,889 (47.36%). There were 12 presidential candidates.
Local news reports quoted Iddrisu as saying that the NDC believes that there are attempts to rob the party of both their presidential and parliamentary victories.
He said Mahama wrote a petition to the EC before the results were announced to voice his concerns over the collation.
“That (petition) was treated with utmost contempt and that we consider unacceptable. We also want to serve notice that the blatant effort even to deny us a parliamentary majority will be fiercely resisted.”
According to Iddrisu, the party is taking “decisive” decisions to challenge the presidential and parliamentary results. Ghana’s democracy has come under severe attack and needs some rescue urgently,” he said.
But, the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) for the general elections has decried the problems of transparency of campaign finance and misuse of state resources in the West African country’s elections.
In its preliminary report in Accra on Wednesday, Chief Observer, Javier Nart, said these problems were flagged in their previous mission to Ghana, but they still persist.
The report said Monday’s presidential and parliamentary elections were organised in an efficient manner and took place in a peaceful atmosphere.
“However, shortcomings identified by previous EU EOMs, mainly related to the transparency of campaign finance and misuse of state resources, still persist,” he said.
Nart said, “Unregulated campaign finance, the reportedly common practice of vote-buying, and the prevalent misuse of state resources for electioneering purposes did not contribute to creating a level-playing field among contestants. It would benefit future elections in Ghana if these issues are addressed.”
