The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has blamed the Electoral Commission (EC) for the delay in filing its presidential nomination forms ahead of the 2020 general elections.
This comes after the party announced its intention to its nomination at 11:00 am on Wednesday, however, the delegation who were to file on behalf of its flagbearer, John Mahama reported to the Commission’s office about six hours late.
Explaining the reason for their tardiness at a press briefing, the party’s General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia said hurdles imposed by the EC ahead of the December polls made it nearly impossible for them to meet the deadline.
According to him, the voters’ identification cards of some of their supporters were replaced in the last minute, hence, they had to go back and recapture the details of their supporters.
“We have been given five days to file nomination from Monday to Friday, but lets ask ourselves, what register are we filing the nominations on.
“The laws of the Commission itself indicated that an old register does not become extinctive, until a new one is finalised and certified.
“But this is the situation that we have been called upon to file nominations but we do not know which register will be the based document for the filing of the nominations,” he said.
Mr Nketia further added that, “We were unable to come at 11 o’clock because this morning some of our supporters who had completed the document by providing their voters’ ID numbers were called to be informed that the Commission has changed their ID cards, and so all the particulars we had captured had to be revised.”
The General Secretary then recalled the cautions the NDC had given to the EC when it announced its intention to compile a new voters’ register.
For him, the incidents happening now vindicates the NDC’s earlier assertions that the time was too short for a very comprehensive and credible register to be compiled ahead of the elections.
“As we speak the Electoral Commission is exhibiting parts of the register that we are supposed to file our nomination on. And it is called provisional register because it has not been certified, no matter what they say, provisional document remains a provisional document,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa after receiving the nomination forms expressed her disappointment in the absence of the flagbearer or his running mate to perform the activity personally.
She explained that the physical presence of John Mahama would have afforded her the opportunity to address some issues he raised regarding some of their processes by the latter ahead of the polls.
“As a commission, we would have wished that the flagbearer of the NDC John Mahama and or his Vice President Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang would have been here personally to present their nomination forms as it would have allowed us to engage, particularly, the former President on some of his concerns which he has noted in the media,” she said.
