By William
Yaw Owusu
Friday
October 05, 2018
Nearly two years after National
Democratic Congress (NDC) was humiliated at the polls, the opposition party is
still fighting over the 2016 election results.
They are at each other’s throat over
the collated results as the campaign to elect new national executives
intensifies.
The ‘fight’ has ensued between Samuel
Ofosu Ampofo, a national chairman aspirant who was the NDC’s Director of
Elections during the 2016 general elections, and the camp of former President John
Mahama who is staging a comeback to lead the party in 2020.
Matters came to a head when one
Michael Ologo believed to be part of the Ofosu Ampofo campaign accused former
Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, who is part of the Mahama
Campaign, for being in charge of the collation of the election results for
2016.
Dr. Omane Boamah scoffed at the allegation,
describing it as ‘deliberate’ and ‘dark lie’ being told to tarnish his
reputation.
“I have read with utter surprise
a deliberate and dark lie being peddled by one Michael Ologo that I, Edward
Kofi Omane Boamah, was in charge of the collation of NDC’s election results for
the 2016 elections. This is false! This deliberate lie, unlike others
deliberately told in the past, will not be allowed to stand.”
Responsibility
He said “if the said Michael
Ologo has the blessings of others to peddle this lie, then they should be
advised accordingly. Let me kindly remind Ologo that Mr. Samuel Ofosu Ampofo,
as a National Vice Chairman of the NDC doubled up as Director of Elections. He
must accept responsibility instead of faceless individuals attempting to
explain away the fact that election results for 2016 have still not been
collated.”
He said “I have largely remained
silent about the malignant attempts some individuals made in 2017 to drag my
good name into the mud concerning matters that can never stand the test of both
logical and factual scrutiny. To all such people, I say to you - from now on;
not in my name.”
The former minister explained
that “the Logistics Committee included respected party elders such as Mr Ato
Ahwoi.
Furthermore, the collation of election results was never part of our
limited mandate,” adding “I repeat, from now on; not in my name.”
Rigged Polls
With the plot to rig the election
terribly backfired leading to its defeat, the NDC has since been dazed with
assigning various reasons for the party’s humiliating defeat.
Recently, in Cape Coast, former
President Mahama who led the NDC to the embarrassing defeat claimed that the
NPP rigged the polls and the opposition party would not be slapped for the
second time in 2020.
It has become clear that the abysmal performance of
the NDC in the December 7, 2016, general elections is haunting Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo
as the party’s Director of Elections.
His critics say he failed to supervise the elections
leading to the non-collation of the results in the 2016 election which got the
NDC ‘stranded’ on December 7 and 8, 2016 and therefore cannot be trusted as the
party’s leader.
Interestingly, by 11 pm on December 7, 2016, then
opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) had in its possession about 80% of all the
pink sheet results in the country and had done its calculation to know that
their candidate Nana Akufo-Addo was winning the presidential election one-touch.
Botchwey’s
Report
The Prof. Kwesi Botchwey-led committee that
investigated the reason for NDC’s massive defeat later established that the
party did not build any official platform to collate results of the December
2016 general elections.
However, Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo claimed recently that the
party had the results and were only waiting for the Electoral Commission to
‘gazette’ the official results so that they could authenticate what the NDC had
collated.
“When you go to the EC’s website, the presidential
result from polling station to polling station has not been gazetted and as a
political party we are worried. We are holding our results and they (Electoral
Commission) are also holding their results even though we both went into the
room.”
“If you want to do proper analysis of the outcome of
the elections, you need to get a gazetted presidential result to check it
against what we (NDC) also had on the field. As we speak now, the Electoral
Commission is yet to gazette the presidential results almost 18 to 19 months
after the elections,” he said.
Damning
Findings
Strangely, Mr. Ofosu Ampofo appeared before the 13
member Botchwey Committee to explain issues to them but the committee, in its
report, made damning findings against the performance of the NDC Election
Committee.
Despite the chants of ‘we are winning the election
one-touch’ by then incumbent President John Mahama and the later ‘we are in a
comfortable lead’ mantra, it turned out the NDC did not collate the results but
rather tied the party’s ‘destiny’ to that of Charlotte Osei’s Electoral
Commission by relying on the EC’s IT system so when the EC’s system failed, the
NDC was caught flat footed, gasping for breath.
Private
Arrangement
The NDC members rather relied on Felix Ofosu Kwakye’s
‘private’ arrangement to collate the result which also failed them miserably,
according to the report.
Reports at the time said the party was in secret
talks with the Electoral Commission to get the results, a move which was
unknown to the other political parties.
The report said the party appeared to have relied on
Ofosu Kwakye’s private arrangement when the main collation platform set up
under the supervision of the Election Directorate headed by Samuel
Ofosu-Ampofo, could have been strengthened to deliver.
“There were evidently two systems - one party based,
and the other, according to Felix Ofosu Kwakye, a private initiative. The
Election Directorate evidently regarded Ofosu Kwakye’s initiative as primary
whereas Mr. Ofosu Kwakye and his team regarded it only as backup system,” the
report said. The NDC collation system was said to have been built by K-Net, the
company handling the multi-million dollar digital television migration.
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