The technical infractions that occurred at the Tuesday, December 19, 2023 district-level elections led to the postponement of the exercise at various electoral areas across the country.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), has, based on the lapses cautioned the Electoral Commission (EC) not to repeat such errors in the 2024 general elections.
The NDC says it doesn’t want any chaos to characterise next year’s polls as a result of the EC’s “mess”.
Among the challenges that made the EC to postpone the polls in some areas were late arrival of ballot materials, alleged wrong ballot papers and some technical issues.
The EC has rescheduled the elections in parts of the Ashanti and Eastern regions to Thursday, December 21, 2023.
Jamal Konneh, the Greater Accra Regional Secretary for the NDC blasted the election management body for failing to carry out the elections as envisaged.
“On a new day for the elections for constituencies who couldn’t hold their elections today, we have received a release from the EC indicating Thursday 21st December 2023 as the new date for the elections. In as much as we disagree with the EC on the new date for the elections, we think the EC statement should have given reasons for the mess.
“Moving into 2024, the region would not entertain such mess and wishes to caution the EC to abort any agenda to repeat this mess in 2024 to prevent any mayhem on Election Day,” the statement indicated.
According to the NDC, the EC’s posture on the foul development was an act of disrespect to the citizenry and wants the Commission to explain to Ghanaians why things turned up that way.
“The disrespect the Jean Mensah-led EC is showing to Ghanaians is what is annoying. At what point did she and her team realize the elections could not take place in some constituencies? Why didn’t they release an official statement to alert the general public on the “Late Arrival of Materials” and the Inability to conduct elections in the affected districts?”
Answers to these questions are needed because the information gathered indicates that most of the ballot papers are yet to be printed as of the election day, 19th December 2023.”
