NDC Won’t Boycott 2020 Election Because Of EC’s Actions – Asiedu Nketia

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) says it is unshaken by actions of the Electoral Commission (EC) that seem to undermine the integrity of the 2020 general election.

According to the opposition party, no action by the electoral management body will compel it to boycott the upcoming polls.

General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, who was speaking after submitting the presidential nomination forms to the EC on behalf of the party’s flagbearer, John Mahama complained about the limited time to file the forms as well as the absence of a certified voter register.

He contended that the EC has forced political parties to sign a document and swear an oath based on a repealed law.

He said the NDC decided to comply with the directive despite being aware of the repealed law for peace to prevail.

“Currently, we have a situation where we have been called to file nominations where there is a big doubt as to which register will be the base document for the election. This register is called a provisional register because it has not been certified. We are going along because we do not want to create a problem for this country. The Electoral Commission has presented a form to us to be submitted and an oath to be sworn based on a law that does not exist. They have said on the forms that we should swear that the candidates have filed their assets according to PNDC law 280 which has repealed since 1998.”

He further argued that; “the law guiding the filing of nomination and declaration of assets today is Act 558 1998. How can a competent Commission be calling us to be swearing oaths based on laws that do not exist? The EC doesn’t even know that the law doesn’t exist. So we want to put on record that, we are filing this nomination because they say so. And we will not boycott the elections no matter what system they put in place. We will still participate in the election and win, and they will be compelled to declare us winners because the people of Ghana want us back.”

The NDC scribe further reiterated the NDC’s commitment to rescue Ghanaians from what he described as the democratic retrogression brought on by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

“We have heard the President say that he is interested in a free and fair election and that he is not interested in any crooked election. We want to alert His Excellency that this election is about to be crooked and all the ingredients are there. So we are calling on all Ghanaians that this election we are going into is a rescue mission. We have to get up to rescue the democracy in this country”, Mr. Nketia added.

---citinewsroom