NDC fully endorses PNC Chairman’s comments on potential chaos during voter registration
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) of using the Ghana Police to clamp down the anti-new voter register movement.
As a member of the coalition, the NDC has reiterated calls and thrown its support behind the Convenor of the Inter-Party Resistance Against the New Voter Register (IPRAN), Mr Bernard Mornah.
Mr Mornah has been invited by the Police CID to answer questions on comments he made, deemed to have been threats against the Electoral Commission (EC) and its officials.
The CID said Mr Mornah made the statement during a press conference by the Inter-Party Resistance Against New Register (IPRAN) on May 26, 2020.
“You were also heard in a video interview to have threatened “that people who are already Ghanaians and already registered are going to be taken out of the register, don’t you think confusion will come at the registration [centres] and if confusion come there, [do] you think the EC staff will be safe?
“We will beat each other there, we will kill each other there if that is what the EC wants to lead this nation to,” the invitation letter signed by Barima Tweneboah Sasraku II, a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) for the Director-General of CID said.
Responding to the development, the NDC said in a statement signed by Deputy
General Secretary, Peter Boamah Otokunor, that: “The invitation of comrade 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 statement issued on May 29 said, “the NDC wholly endorses and subscribes fully to the comments made by Comrade Bernard Mornah”.
The NDC added that the coalition would not be bullied to back down on their demands for the EC to shelve the compilation of the new voter roll set to begin in the last week of June.
Below is the full statement:
For Immediate Release:
NDC STANDS WITH COMRADE BERNARD MORNAH
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), has taken notice of an invitation extended to the National Chairman of the PNC and leading member of the Inter-Party Resistance Against A New Voters Register (IPRAN), Comrade Bernard Mornah to assist in investigations in respect of an alleged inflammatory comment made at a Press Conference of the Resistance.
We wish to state our unequivocal support for the caution Comrade Mornah offered to the EC at the said press conference, 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.
For purposes of emphasis, the NDC wholly endorses and subscribes fully to the comments made by Comrade Bernard Mornah.
Indeed, 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 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 invitation of comrade 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.
We wish to send a strong and clear caution to the Akufo-Addo government that no amount of intimidation can cower us into silence or quench our unwavering determination to stop the reckless new voters’ register agenda of the Jean Mensah-led EC.
We are convinced that, 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 the President Akufo Addo and the ruling NPP. And, we shall employ every legitimate means to stop this evil conspiracy of the EC, NIA and the ruling NPP.
The Resistance remains committed to the intrinsic responsibility bestowed on us by the 1992 Constitution of the Republic to protect and maintain the sanctity of Ghana’s electoral process and to resist the oppressors rule. We invite all members of the great NDC and general public to rise in solidarity with our comrade and National Chairman of the PNC, Comrade Bernard Mornah, on Tuesday at the CID Headquarters.
Signed
Cde. Peter Boamah Otokunor
Deputy General Secretary (Operation)