John Dramani Mahama, the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said that the party would not back the plan to move the 2024 election date from December to November.
“We [NDC] do not believe that this is being proposed in good faith,” he maintained.
The words were delivered by the NDC flagbearer on Saturday, February 10, at the commencement of the Minority caucus meeting in Ho.
According to Mr. Mahama, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) had started plotting to taint the legitimacy of the elections because it was certain it would lose. One such plot point was the Electoral Commission’s sudden interest in moving the election date from December 7 to November 7, even though it had not yet shown that it was prepared to hold general elections.
Mr. Mahama stated that the District Assembly elections in December of last year served as a stark example of the commission’s lack of readiness, with minor errors and startling logistical breakdowns revealing that the body was ill-equipped to handle election management.
“All indications point to a resounding victory for the NDC in the 2024 elections and an unmistakable rejection of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government by the people of Ghana upon whom they have heaped very poor governance,” Mr Mahama added.
Further, he said, corruption, maladministration, nepotism, arrogance of power, incompetence, and gleeful waste of state resources by this government are all set to come to an end at the polls later this year, prompting the NPP to look for fraudulent means to twists the elections to favour them.
Continuous registration
“Regarding the issue of continuous registration, as canvassed by the Electoral Commission, we demand that the process must necessarily include a system that enables all political parties and relevant stakeholders to possess the capacity to monitor that exercise in real time, to avoid fraud and exploitation to the undue advantage of any party,” the NDC flag bearer insisted.
Mr Mahama commended the Minority in Parliament for living up to expectation by putting in valiant efforts to check the excesses of this government.
“The composition of this eighth Parliament under the Fourth Republic placed you at the centre of history and brought in its wake, a unique responsibility and burden of expectation never witnessed.
Mr Mahama reminded the caucus members not to lose sight of the fact that they, as the Minority in Parliament, had become the last bulwark between an overbearing, desperate and non-performing government, and the people.
“Ghanaians are counting on you to secure them against poor governance and keep this government in check” stated Mr. Mahama.
He pointed out that, with a certain advantage, the Ghanaian people chose to have a hung parliament, meaning that none of the main parties had recently controlled the chamber.
According to Mr. Mahama, that historic agreement represented years of calls by Ghanaians for a robust and aggressive legislative branch that was really independent of the overbearing executive.
According to him, it also showed a desire for more effective use of your oversight powers and closer examination of the executive.
The former president claimed that the 24-hour economy policy, which had gained support from the majority of the populace, along with the more than sixty other policy options he had proposed thus far, would guarantee an improvement in people’s quality of life, restart the severely damaged economy, and open the door to long-term prosperity for everyone, not just a select few.
Ghana Card
Ghana ID
Regarding the Ghana Card, Mr. Mahama issued a warning to the Electoral Commission, saying that we in the NDC would put up the strongest fight if it continues to cling to the idea of disenfranchising sections of our population at all costs due to an erroneous insistence that it be used as the only form of identification for registration.
He pointed out that the Ghana Card was currently being used more as a political weapon, the center of which various plans aimed at elections were being developed
Mr. Mahama maintained that before implementing such a pointless exclusion of any other properly obtained, reliable, and time-tested forms of identification, enough time had to pass for its full integration into Ghanaians’ way of life.
He said Ghana was now so yoked with arguably, the worst government in its history in the shape of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government.
“They have been so bad; their own poster boy is attempting an inexplicable and contriving separation between himself and happenings in the very government he was touted as the brain behind, for purely electoral purposes,” Mr. Mahama noted.
After a brief period of instability brought on by inevitable headwinds, the economy they inherited had stabilized, he said, adding that the NPP had wasted its way into a trench from which it was now hard to escape without causing great misery to the populace.
