The Electoral Commission (EC) has said that it would boycott Saturday’s presidential and parliamentary primaries of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) until all legal concerns surrounding the election are settled.
Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, an NDC presidential candidate hopeful, has filed an application in the High Court seeking an injunction to halt the primaries slated for Saturday, May 13, 2023, citing election irregularities.
Duffuor had already petitioned the electoral authority to assist in the case, having also offered some proof to back up his assertion that there were inconsistencies in the party’s registration. As a result, the EC invited the parties to a meeting on Wednesday.
During the meeting, EC President Jean Mensa stated that the election management body will refrain from conducting internal polls in order to avoid being charged for contempt.
During the meeting, EC President Jean Mensa stated that the election management body will refrain from conducting internal polls in order to avoid being charged for contempt.
“In order to avoid being cited for contempt, the commission has decided not to supervise the conduct of the presidential and parliamentary elections until the case is resolved by the court,” Mensa told the parties during the meeting.
“We thought we should bring this to your attention,” she said before cancelling the meeting to remedy the problem.
National chairman Johnson Asiedu Nketiah and former deputy general secretary Peter Boamah Otukonor were among those who attended the meeting.
Dr Kwabena Duffuor is the plaintiff, and there are five defendants, according to the writ of summons issued at the General Jurisdiction Court on Tuesday (9 May 2023). They are the NDC’s general secretary (1st defendant), the NDC’s director of elections (2nd defendant), former President John Dramani Mahama (3rd defendant), Kojo Bonsu (4th defendant), and the Electoral Commission of Ghana (5th defendant).
The motion is set to be filed in court on Monday, May 15, 2023, two days after the date set for the NDC’s internal elections (13 May). Lawyers for the NDC are anticipated to go to court to seek a time extension to guarantee that the case is dealt with swiftly so that the elections can take place as planned.
Dr. Kwabena Duffuor’s application essentially seeks three reliefs. First, he requests a “declaration that the Photo Album Register issued by the 1st and 2nd defendants to the Plaintiff on 4 May 2023 as the primary document for conducting the internal Presidential election of the National Democratic Congress on the 13th of May, 2023 is incomplete and inaccurate.”
Second, he asks the court for “an order directing the first and second defendants to prepare and deliver a complete and accurate Photo Album Register to the Plaintiff and other presidential aspirants of the National Democratic Congress at least five weeks before the elections, to enable the aspirants to carry out the necessary verification of the Photo Album Register.”
Finally, Dr. Duffuor is seeking “an injunction prohibiting the first, second, and fifth defendants from conducting the internal presidential elections of the National Democratic Congress on 13 May 2023, pending compliance with the second reliefs [as stated above].”
Dr. Duffuor believes that the Photo Album Register, which was released by the NDC’s director of elections with the knowledge, consent, and tacit approval of the party’s general secretary, would jeopardise the integrity of the elections, erode public trust in the elections, and lead to disputes over election results.
Dr. Duffuor, in his statement of claim filed in court, “avers that the partial delivery of the Photo Album Register to his representatives on the 4th of May, 2023 was in itself out of time considering the magnitude of the verification exercise required of them before the internal elections on the 13th of May, 2023.”
According to the plaintiff, Dr. Duffuor, “to their (Duffuor team) utmost surprise, upon verification, it was discovered that the number of constituencies on the hard drive given to his representatives was 220 in number as opposed to the alleged number of 228 constituencies indicated by the defendant.”
He goes on to say that “an initial verification of the said 220 constituencies on the hard drive given to his representatives by the 2nd defendant established basic errors and inaccuracies that render the Photo Album Register inaccurate and unreliable for free, fair, and credible elections.”
He goes on to say that “an initial verification of the said 220 constituencies on the hard drive given to his representatives by the 2nd defendant established basic errors and inaccuracies that render the Photo Album Register inaccurate and unreliable for free, fair, and credible elections.”
Furthermore, Dr. Duffuor claims that “records of some of the delegates have been duplicated and given different names and different Party identification numbers, and a sizable number of eligible voters have no photographs exhibited on the Photo Album Register, making any meaningful verification exercise on these persons impossible.”
The plaintiff further claims that, out of the 220 constituencies, an exceptional list of 74,799 persons has been prepared to participate in the elections, which cannot be validated due to the little information supplied about them in the Photo Album Register.
Following these discoveries, Dr. Duffuor states that he “filed a petition with the 5th defendant (EC) for the 5th defendant’s intervention for the 1st and 2nd defendants to compile a comprehensive and accurate register and prevent fraudulent activities such as multiple voting, impersonation, and disenfranchisement of eligible and qualified voters.”
Dr. Duffuor, the plaintiff, “maintains that the first and second defendants’ reluctance to extend the time for internal elections and provide a complete and credible Photo Album Register ahead of time to the Presidential aspirants for verification smacks of a plan to create undue advantage for manipulation of the presidential primaries.”
