Electoral Fraud in the making: NPP and NDC Exposed!

Ghana's 2008 Parliamentary and Presidential elections are wide open to fraud by both the ruling New Patriotic Party and the opposition New Democratic Party because the incumbent NPP government has refused to close loopholes, writes Neil Addition, Reporters Without Borders, in Accra.

There are reports of NPP planning to purge opposition supporters from voters' list, to frighten voters with conveniently timed “armed robbery, terror alerts” and to suppress opposition vote wherever possible by reducing the number of polling stations and ballot boxes in areas with strong opposition support. This is a plot being hatched by the core hierarchy, according a leak.

How precisely this apparent manipulation may be carried out is open to question. The NPP government has made no secret of its scorn the voter register list put in place by the NDC administration under John Rawlings, its hostility to any notion of NDC achievements in office and its contemptuous dismissal of “massive corruption with their ranks”, its contempt, in the broadest sense, for truth.

NPP claimed “electoral victory” in the 2004 Presidential elections, but as evidence revealed almost 2 years after the “so called victory” with clarity, that the election “was stolen” through massive fraud.

According to one international election observer, “The President took office through fraud, but was given legitimacy by the international community”. He further stated that, “if this electoral fraud is repeated in 2008, the country would descend into civil war”.

NPP set aside over $20 million aside for “corrupt news paper editors to, “make the headlines big and bold and put up chats and graphs to show how NPP Presidential candidate leads, and people will buy the lie” according to an NPP insider who was promised a million dollars contract but was turned down in favour of the daughter of Kwamena Bartels. He said, “Neil you know the old adage, “Repeat the lie often enough and people and the International community will believe it”. He stated that, “The Americans will not allow Ghana to disintegrate due to their interest in our oil”.

Another NPP insider stated that if the vote rigging trick did not work, they intend to use the courts to legitimise their “win” at any cost. Quoting Joseph Stalin, he said “those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything” to emphasise how NPP are planning to “win” the 2008 elections “rain or shine”. Neil Addison for Reporters Without Borders, Accra, Ghana.