NDC General Secretary Sounds Alarm

The fiery General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Josiah Aryeh, has warned of impending calamity of the Liberian magnitude if the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) continues with “attempts to manipulate the December polls”.

Dr Aryeh who is also a new lecturer at the University of Ghana, last week noted in an interview with The Heritage at the Party's Headquarters in Accra that the genesis of war in West Africa and elsewhere in Africa stems from disputed election results.

He therefore called for fairness to all competing parties in the electoral process. “People have made references to the genesis of war across West Africa and elsewhere in Africa… disputed election result tends to trigger conflict. So we are saying that we should be very careful. We must be seen to be even-handed and fair to competing parties in the electoral process”, the legal luminary cautioned.

Dr Aryeh pointed out that the conditions prevailing now in the country have striking similarities with what happened in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast before those countries were plunged into turmoil.

“They (NPP) totally see the parallel of what they are doing now and what happened before in Liberia or what happened before in Ivory Coast or what happened before in Sierra Leone. To any dispassionate observer of West African geopolitics, the parallels are striking, so we are simply cautioning and advising the NPP that they better be careful”, he observed.

The NDC scribe said the systematic nature of the EC failures in the registration process portends a simister motive on the part of the NPP to rig the elections.

He bemoaned what he sees as lack of response on part of the Chairman of the Electoral Commission on numerous allegations of registration malpractices in many regions.