Citizens, especially politicians, should cease the unnecessary criticisms of the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana, Ashanti regional Chairman of the National Peace Council, Professor Seth Opuni Asiamah has cautioned.

Professor Asiamah, who was speaking at the launch of the Ashanti regional Elections Early Warning and Response Group at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Kumasi, expressed the council’s displeasure about the barrage of verbal attacks hurled at the election management body and its boss Mrs Charlotte Osei.

“What is even more worrying is that we seem to be bastardising the very institutions that must give us the free and fair elections that we are looking for,” he noted, and advised individuals who had any concerns about the elections to use the proper channels in getting solutions.

For him, such disparaging remarks are not healthy, as the country prepares for the December 7 parliamentary and presidential polls.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Council, Most Reverend Emmanuel Asante, who also addressed the gathering, cautioned the public to desist from fomenting trouble before, during, and after the elections.

He said the Council had noted certain comments from some people which did not bode well for peace.

“We have heard a number of people saying that this time ‘in case things do not go the way we expect it, we might not go to court’. That is what people are saying, but we (NPC) are saying that we (Ghanaians) cannot adopt that kind of attitude,” he said in the Ashanti regional capital on Monday August 8.

He said such comments were dangerous for Ghana’s democracy. “That is why we have set up certain institutions to help us so that everything will be peaceful. … The idea that ‘I will take the laws into my own hands’ will not help us,” he admonished.