The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said it endorses and subscribes to the caution made by the Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC) Bernard Mornah to the Electoral Commission (EC) in respect of the potential outbreak of political violence at registration centers, as a result of the exclusion of the existing voters ID card from the list of identification requirements for the new voter registration exercise the EC intends to undertake.
Mr Mornah who is a leading member of the Inter-Party Resistance Against New Register (IPRAN), a group that is kicking against plans by the EC to compile a new voters register ahead of the December elections on 26 May 2020 at a press conference said: “We’ll beat and kill each other” should confusion arise at any voter ID card registration centre during the forthcoming exercise.
The Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service has since invited Mr Mornah for questioning over his statement and he is expected to honour the invitation in Tuesday, 2 June 2020 at 10 am at the CID headquarters in Accra.
Reacting to Mr Mornah’s police invitation, the NDC, another party against the compilation of the voters register noted in a statement signed by Peter Boamah Otokunor Deputy General Secretary (Operation) that: “We wish to state our unequivocal support for the caution Comrade Mornah offered to the EC at the said press conference, for purposes of emphasis, the NDC wholly endorses and subscribes fully to the comments made by Comrade Bernard Mornah.”
According to the NDC, the entrenched decision of the Jean Mensah-led EC to compile “a needless, illogical and wasteful new voters’ register for the 2020 general elections has the tendency to spark chaos and electoral violence across the country.”
Furthermore, the NDC noted that the “continuous unjustifiable intransigence of the EC and flagrant disregard for stakeholder consultations and consensus building in the handling of the processes leading to the 2020 general elections is a recipe for confusion and democratic retrogression.”
The party said the invitation of Mr Mornah by the Ghana Police Service is nothing but “political puppetism” on the part of the Ghana Police service and “part of a grand orchestration by the NPP government to intimidate and demobilise the front of the Resistance in its spirited opposition to the needless and illogical decision of the EC to compile a new voters’ register ahead of the 2020 polls.”
The NDC reiterated that it is convinced the Jean Mensa-led Electoral Commission is determined to skew the Voter Registration process in order to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters in order to rig the 2020 general elections for President Akufo-Addo and the governing NPP and, they shall employ every legitimate means to stop “this evil conspiracy of the EC, NIA and the ruling NPP.”
The NDC has, therefore, encouraged its supporters to rise in solidarity with Mr Mornah on Tuesday when he honours the police invitation at the CID Headquarters.