President John Dramani Mahama has asked Ghanaians to allow the Electoral Commission to carry out its mandate in Wednesday’s general elections, official results of which have delayed barely 40 hours after close of polls.
“Let’s allow EC to carry out its constitutional mandate. We’ll make Ghana proud no matter outcome,” the President tweeted Friday morning for the first time after the elections.
Let’s allow EC to carry out its constitutional mandate. We’ll make Ghana proud no matter outcome.
His statement comes on the back of what appears to be pressure on the Electoral Commission by the executives of the two main political parties and Ghanaians in general, to declare the results of the December 7 polls.
Although the Commission had prior to the elections promised to declare a winner in the presidential poll within 72 hours, many Ghanaians say it has delayed in releasing official results in the presidential polls.
The delays, according to the Commission, is due to the discovery of some instances of over-voting on the face of the electronic results transmitted to the EC quarters from the various constituency collation centres.
The Commission has thus demanded for the hard copies of all original pink sheets from the various polling stations across the country for validation at its headquarters in Accra before the results are certified for release.
Barely 24 hours after polls closed, the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party claimed victory in the presidential election even before a single provisional results was released by the returning officer, Mrs Charlotte Osei who is also the chairperson of the Commission.
At a news conference Thursday morning, Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Peter Mac Manu claimed they had won the presidential election per their tabulation, and urged the Commission to declare the results.
But the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, hours later also claimed per their figures, the NDC was in a “comfortable lead ” and “cruising to victory”.
He thus warned the NPP to desist from cowing the EC into declaring results of the presidential poll.
Mr Asiedu Nketia noted that it was agreed at IPAC prior to the elections that the results could be certified and released only when the electronic results from the constituencies are validated with the original hardcopies of the pink sheets.
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