John Dramani Mahama, the president-elect, has criticized the Ghanaian Electoral Commission (EC) for its decision to re-collect the results of five seats in which their parliamentary candidates had already been proclaimed the winners.

Addressing a crowd at his Cantonment headquarters in Accra, Mahama charged that the EC was inconsistent with its stance on the already-announced election results.

He mentioned how the EC had previously refused requests to recall election results that had already been announced, stating that the court was the only body qualified to address such cases.

A handful of unresolved concerns can be traced back to the election. As you know, there are nine constituencies that are up for debate, and we believe that the Electoral Commission ought to act morally. You cannot use various rules in different situations and alter the rules to fit your needs. A specific case occurred in 2020, and the Electoral Commission made it clear that it was not its responsibility to decide whether a declaration had been made. The courts were the appropriate venue.


“And so if a declaration has been made, it doesn’t matter under what circumstances. They are saying that some were under duress. In the case of Techiman South, it was under duress. There were soldiers in the collation room, there was chaos in the collation room when the declaration was made and the same arguments were passed that, you know, there should be a re-collation. The Electoral Commission said, no, there can’t be any re-collation once a declaration has been made. In the same circumstances, declarations have been made. If people have a grievance, they must go to the courts and redress those grievances there. We don’t think that the goalpost should be shifted depending on who is at the other end of the stick,” he said.

In one specific instance, he continued, "there was no declaration. It makes sense to us. The Electoral Commission must thus decide what will happen. Will a rerun be organized? How are they going to compile the findings? Because of this, we believe that everything we do must be reasonable and equitable.