By Edmund Mingle & Stephen Effah
Monday, January 5, 2009
The Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan on Saturday said the Commission found no merit in allegations of election irregularities in by the New Patriotic Party and National Democratic Congress, as the two parties failed to provide concrete evidence to support the claims.
The NPP and the NDC, after the December run-off, levelled allegations of vote rigging against each other in their respective strongholds.
While the NDC accused the NPP of rigging the election in the Ashanti region, the NPP accused the NDC of restraining NPP party agent from observing the poll in the Volta region which enabled the NDC to rig there.
Consequently, the EC Chairman asked both parties to provide evidence for investigation and appropriate action.
However, based on the evidence provided, Dr. Afari-Gyan said “the Commission did not find the evidence provided to be sufficient to invalidate the results.”
Explaining the issues before declaring Prof. Mills as winner of the presidential run-off, Dr. Afari-Gyan said that the commission in arriving at the winner of the polls, considered the allegations of vote-rigging in Ashanti and Volta regions by both parties in the run-off which he asked them to provide evidence.
The commissioners, he said, met to examine materials submitted by both the NDC and the NPP in the nature of evidence to support their claims.
“The NDC failed to submit complete sets of polling-station by polling-station declaration of result forms to enable a re-examination of the collated figures for the constituencies in Ashanti that they had complained of,” he stated.
In the case of the NPP, he said “some of the issues raised bother on criminality and therefore, fall outside the competence of the Electoral Commission.”
In view of that, Dr.Afari-Gyan said that “the results as previously tallied from the 299 constituencies remain unchanged,” adding that the results of Tain constituency were added to the national results to make the decider.
Monday, January 5, 2009
The Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan on Saturday said the Commission found no merit in allegations of election irregularities in by the New Patriotic Party and National Democratic Congress, as the two parties failed to provide concrete evidence to support the claims.
The NPP and the NDC, after the December run-off, levelled allegations of vote rigging against each other in their respective strongholds.
While the NDC accused the NPP of rigging the election in the Ashanti region, the NPP accused the NDC of restraining NPP party agent from observing the poll in the Volta region which enabled the NDC to rig there.
Consequently, the EC Chairman asked both parties to provide evidence for investigation and appropriate action.
However, based on the evidence provided, Dr. Afari-Gyan said “the Commission did not find the evidence provided to be sufficient to invalidate the results.”
Explaining the issues before declaring Prof. Mills as winner of the presidential run-off, Dr. Afari-Gyan said that the commission in arriving at the winner of the polls, considered the allegations of vote-rigging in Ashanti and Volta regions by both parties in the run-off which he asked them to provide evidence.
The commissioners, he said, met to examine materials submitted by both the NDC and the NPP in the nature of evidence to support their claims.
“The NDC failed to submit complete sets of polling-station by polling-station declaration of result forms to enable a re-examination of the collated figures for the constituencies in Ashanti that they had complained of,” he stated.
In the case of the NPP, he said “some of the issues raised bother on criminality and therefore, fall outside the competence of the Electoral Commission.”
In view of that, Dr.Afari-Gyan said that “the results as previously tallied from the 299 constituencies remain unchanged,” adding that the results of Tain constituency were added to the national results to make the decider.
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