The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is crying wolf where there is none; it has lost the Gomoa East by-election in a clean, fair and free election and members are dishonestly alleging that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) rigged it, says the Electoral Commission (EC).

Deputy Commissioner (Operations) Kofi Arhin, has, in fact, dared the NDC to go to court if it has any tangible case to complain about. "So far as we are concerned, we are not going to go into any investigation because we believe we have conducted a clean election. If anyone believes he has any case, he can petition and, in any case, as soon as the results are gazetted, you have 21 days within which to petition," Arhin added when reached on phone yesterday.

Following the death in a motor accident of Emmanuel Acheampong - the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) last month, the parliamentary seat at Gomoa East in the Central region became vacant. Subsequently, the EC performed its constitutional duty of organising a by-election in the constituency three days ago.

The result was that, of the 17,447, people who voted in the 81 polling stations of the constituency, the ruling NPP swept 11,380, representing 65%; the NDC which won the seat in 1992 and 1996 trailed second with a disappointing 5,356 votes or 30% while the Democratic People's Party (DPP) got an insignificant 175 or 1%.

As many as 536 or 3%, of the votes, were not considered valid. At the end of it all, hot exchanges ensued between the NDC general secretary, Dr. Josiah Aryeh, who insisted that the ruling party bought votes and intimidated NDC operatives and voters, and Lord Commey the NPP organiser who pointed to the fact that the NDC agents at all the 81 stations endorsed the result sheets. The NDC accusations also implicated the EC as having condoned the supposed rigging, perpetrated by the Elephant Party.

One of the stations the NDC alleged experienced the NPP massive rigging was Gomoa Lome. Asked to comment about it, Mr. Arhin said that was the biggest electoral area in the constituency, hence the high voter turnout there. "When I went there in the morning there were a lot of people in the queue in the two polling stations and when I went again they were counting and I think they were about 600."

Asked to confirm whether he agreed to Dr. Aryeh's request to suspend the release of the election results, he vehemently refuted, "Nobody does that anywhere in this world. I did not agree to it. All I said was that we were going to ask him to talk but we were going to announce our results. Then after that he could organise any press conference or do whatever he wanted to." This was in reaction to a claim made by the NDC scribe that Arhin had agreed to suspend the release of the results.

Pressed to say whether he and his returning officers, who live in the Gomoa East, had come across any vote-buying or intimidation before or during the elections, the EC boss had this to say: "I never heard or saw anything. You only hear some of these things in the press. When you go to the ground nobody comes to tell you; we hear them as rumours."

The allegations of fraud in the electoral system are tarnishing the image of the EC and its officials. For example, on Tuesday, "somebody called us thieves; that the EC officials are thieves and we did not take kindly to it," Arhin said bitterly. The EC and the NDC functionaries engaged in hot exchanges at the returning office, Chronicle information, confirmed by Arhin, indicated.

But will these slurs on the image of the EC lower the esteem in which the international community holds Ghana's election organisers?

According to Mr. Arhin, "We are respected in the Commonwealth and the UN about how we do our things, so people should be very careful when they make such utterances. To say that Ghana's EC is condoning and conniving electoral fraud is seriously unfortunate, but I hope it does not dim our chances of sourcing continued assistance from our development partners because they know we are good."

The deputy general secretary of the NDC, Baba Jamal, in an interview stated that the refusal of his party to sign the final result sheets of the Gomoa East by-election was because party leaders were not satisfied with the process that led to the election itself.

According to him there had been too many irregularities in recent elections that did not augur well for the electoral process and if the party continued to accept the results, it would mean the NDC condoning the irregularities, which are inimical to the interest of the nation.

Jamal added that the NDC's refusal to sign the electoral form was a protest signal to Ghanaians that they are unhappy about things happening in terms of the organisation of the elections by the NPP government, especially the campaign on the ground.

"We indicated that we are not signing it because it was fraudulent," he stressed.

On whether the NDC is asking for another by-election in the constituency, Jamal said the leadership was meeting to decide on that. Meanwhile, the party had rejected the results.

After losing to the NPP five consecutive times, the NDC is again to contest the Amenfi West by-election since the party has made it a policy to contest all by-elections, no matter what the results.

When asked to prove the fraud charges the organiser claimed happened in Gomoa Lome, he said that those two electoral areas in the constituency alone recorded over 80% of the voting capacity in a constituency where not a single other polling station recorded 50% of its total.

He claimed that Gomoa Lome was declared a no-go area for the NDC because NPP operatives drove them out of the town with stones and turned back to rather lie that the NDC had brought four people to fight the whole town.

On why they were chased out of the town, the deputy general secretary said he heard that the electorate's fingers were marked with indelible ink so he decided to go there and see things for himself. But he was chased out of one polling station and he had to be assisted by the police to escape being lynched.