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General News of Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Source: clbadfmonline.com
2019-02-05
Jean Mensah, President of the EC
Mr. Totobi Quakyi, former Minister of National Security, said that the response of the president of the electoral commission, Mrs. Jean Mensa, to some observations of the Coalition of National Election Observers (CODEO) regarding the By-election of Ayawaso West Wuogon, shows his degree of "political immaturity".
The President of the European Commission did not endorse the violent comment by CODEO at the end of the polls, when macho men identified as national security agents fired on six supporters of the National Democratic Congress ( NDC) of opposition to La-Bawaleshie.
At a press conference held after the elections at the EC headquarters on Friday, February 1, 2019, Ms. Mensa said: "With regard to the alleged shooting in the La-Bawaleshie region, the Commission rejects the CODEO report's attempts. link the electoral commission to the alleged incident in the private residence of the parliamentary candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
"The Commission wishes to point out that the shooting did not take place in any of the polling stations in the constituency and therefore in no way disrupted the voting process. In this regard, the Commission strongly rejects the alleged acts of violence allegedly occurring in the La Bawaleshie region ".
Ms. Mensa told CODEO that the presence of armed security officials intimidated voters in the various polling stations: "We want to reject the badertion that the presence of unarmed security, immigration officials and firefighters would have disrupted the polls.
"It is important to note that none of the EC's security officers in any of the 137 polling stations in the constituency were armed, giving voters the freedom to exercise their right to vote.
"Indeed, these security officers were far from the stands and, in the opinion of the commission, did not in any way constitute a measure of intimidation for new voters," she said.
With regard to CODEO's report that a national security officer allegedly attacked a police officer at the JHS prison polling station, Ms. Mensa replied: "The Commission wishes to make it clear that the alleged badault on the policeman by national security officers, in the CODEO report, is false.
"The control of the Commission with its election officers; that is, the Presidents of the polling stations and the District Electoral Officer in charge of the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency, run counter to CODEO's statement.
However, in an open letter to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo after the election, Mr. Quakyi told the president: "The indignation of your election commissioner (sic) regarding the seriousness of the situation only feeds the embers that must be extinguished hastily.The vanity of his response bears witness to an astonishing political immaturity and his attempt to discredit the observations and legitimate concerns of independent observers is truly regrettable , unjustifiable and imprudent. "
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