A
Deputy Communications Director of the opposition New Patriotic Party,
John Boadu has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to reveal the
accurate details of the number of Ghanaian nationals who were registered
to partake in the December 7 and 8 2012 general elections.
He
implored the EC to answer succinctly, the request by the petitioners to
furnish them with the documents on the electorates registered abroad
since the EC’s information is inadequate.
The Electoral
Commission (EC) on Thursday, February 14 complied with the Supreme Court
order asking it to furnish the petitioners challenging the declaration
of John Dramani Mahama as President in the December 7 and 8, 2012
general elections, with details of the registration exercise it carried
out abroad.
The EC provided before the court 705 Ghanaians it
said were registered in Ghanaian missions abroad though the Commission
quoted earlier that over 241,000 people were registered.
However,
there are conflicting issues about the revelations by the EC as the
total number of Ghanaians registered abroad is believed to be far lower
than the figures the Commission quoted during the general elections.
The
EC, in its answers to the petitioners, indicated that even though it
had announced initial provisional figures of 13,917,366, after the
registration of Ghanaians abroad, it arrived at 14,158,890 voters; a
difference of 241,524 registered voters.
The petitioners,
comprising the New Patriotic Party (NPP) 2012 Presidential
candidate,Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, his running mate Dr. Mahamudu
Bawumia and the party's chairman, Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, filed an
application for 'interrogatories' to get the EC to furnish them with
the documents on the people registered overseas.
President
Mahama, who is the 2nd respondent, in his answer to the petition,
endorsed the EC’s explanation that the 13, 917,366 figure given to the
political parties was provisional.
In the document submitted to
the Supreme Court, the EC put the number of service personnel returning
from international peacekeeping duties at 2178 while the total number of
diplomatic staff serving abroad as well as students on government
scholarships and Ghanaians serving with international bodies were 705.
This brought the total number to 2,883, leaving the EC to fish for the missing 238,117.
A
simple calculation on the list of voters registered abroad showed that
the total number submitted by the EC was 2,883, whereas the commission
in response to the petition quoted that over 241,000 people were
registered abroad.
Contributing to a panel discussion on PeaceFM’s Morning Show, ‘Kokrokoo’
he stated that the EC's response does not indicate the residential
addresses of the voters and is also short on other vital information
about the voters abroad in the register.
He also touched on the
accusations against the NPP that the petitioners had presented documents
in relation to only the 4,709 polling stations whose results were
initially challenged by the petitioners prior to the amendment of the
petition.
To him, it is just a “deliberate distortion” of the
facts stressing that the petitioners presented all the documents
supporting its amended claims for Presidential results from 11,916
polling stations to be annulled.
"...the NDC simply wants to
create the impression that the NPP has not fully honoured the request by
the Supreme Court...it is just a ploy to throw dust into the eyes of
Ghanaians," he added. |
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