NPP group damns ex-Prez Mahama for ‘attacking’ EC

Members of the pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) group, ‘Fixing The Country Movement’, are of the view that former President John Dramani Mahama’s constant attacks on the Electoral Commission (EC) could jeopardise the country's democratic gains. 

According to the group, the former president since losing the 2020 presidential elections to the incumbent President, Nana Akufo-Addo, had not spared a day without attacking the EC that it rigged the elections in favour of President Akufo-Addo and his New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, October 21, 2021, the Convener of the group, Mr Ernest Owusu Bempah, said even though Mr Mahama had been alleging that the EC rigged the 2020 elections, he could not prove that in court when he took the EC to the country’s Supreme Court.

For him, he is surprised that former President Mahama had been castigating the electoral body, pointing out that in 2016, he (Mr Mahama) described the country’s EC as one of the best in the world and wondered why he is now marring the image of EC.

“Apparently, everything with the EC was perfect under Mr Mahama's reign, but not under the Akufo-Addo regime?” he quizzed.

Mr Owusu Bempah said Mr Mahama was deliberately painting the EC black in the eyes of the public in order to achieve his parochial political interests.

He said the ‘Fixing The Country Movement’ had been very critical of Mr Mahama because “Mr Mahama is showing gross incompetence even in opposition.”

For him, Mr Mahama’s “utterances and baseless rants highlight the weaknesses in our democracy and bring into contempt the office he once occupied.”

Mr Owusu Bempah claimed that Mr Mahama whilst speaking on Global FM in Ho during his recent “Thank You” tour to the Volta Region, said that the 2020 elections were manipulated in New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) favour against the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

“Mr Mahama claims the deployment of military personnel to collation centres forced some electoral officers to declare results in favour of the governing New Patriotic Party,” he alleged.

For him, “He (Mr Mahama) needs to be told in plain language that touting these unfounded claims of election fraud without willingness to follow the constitutional procedures is as horrible.”

He was of the view that “Mr Mahama is just clutching on straw and hoping to create a religion of conspiracy to undermine our democracy and ideas that challenge his politics.”

Mr Owusu Bempah has, therefore, admonished the former President to instead of attacking the EC, concentrate on the internal politics that awaits him in the NDC.

He said ‘Fixing The Country Movement’ would continue to play its role to ensure that the country’s democracy is sustained, while protecting the country’s relative peace.