Founder and President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has asked political party agents to ignore the Electoral Commission’s directive seeking to stop them from supervising the votes transfer exercise.
He believes the EC cannot be trusted to conduct the process fairly without oversight from political parties.
In a Facebook post on Monday, June 3, Mr Cudjoe criticised the EC’s directive, asserting that it would be foolish for any political party agent or leader to trust the EC to transfer votes without their presence.
He argued that the integrity of the votes transfer process could be compromised without proper monitoring.
Mr Cudjoe highlighted the EC’s history of demonstrating incompetence and a lack of trustworthiness, making it essential for political parties to be involved in monitoring the process.
He insisted that the EC should not be allowed to operate independently without the oversight of its key stakeholders to ensure transparency and fairness.
“We keep telling you that the current leadership of the Electoral Commission is now the most incompetent of all public sector workers. Apart from earning inglorious stripes for lying, chicanery, and subterfuge, of course. Just watch this comical explanation for playing with electoral figures. These were the same IT staff they used in telling us that all biometric devices we bought with hard cash were damaged and must be thrown away.”
“These same IT staff took part in tenders to approve the purchase of multi-million dollar machines! They have just issued a carefully crafted presser that no political party agent should observe the transfer of votes that its sole staff must undertake.”
“You would be a very foolish political party agent or leader to trust these people to transfer votes in your absence. Shine your eyes. Corel draw for data analysis and data visualisation,” he posted.
The NDC has strongly opposed the directive issued by the EC, urging its agents to ignore the EC’s instruction.
The NDC contends that this directive could facilitate gerrymandering through illegal voter transfers, thereby undermining the integrity of the electoral process.
The EC recently issued a directive to its Regional Directors, instructing them to inform district directors that agents of political parties will not be permitted to observe the ongoing transfer of votes.
This directive is scheduled to come into force on Monday, June 3. The EC said this had become necessary due to the pockets of violent incidents recorded at some of its centres with the known one occurring in the Awutu Senya East Constituency of the Central Region.
The Commission, however, said copies of the transferred voters’ list would be given to political parties and their candidates upon request.