President-elect John Mahama has raised concerns about the presence of duplicate ballot papers in the electoral process, warning that if the issue persists, Ghana may have no choice but to print ballot papers outside the country to ensure the integrity of future elections.
According to Mahama, it will be necessary to conduct a post-mortem of the ballot paper printing process to determine what went wrong during the election and with ballot paper stuffing.
He explained that during the elections, they found people in possession of genuine EC ballot papers, raising questions about how they obtained the papers and how they managed to access the Electoral Commission’s plates to print ballot papers. He emphasized that these issues need to be investigated.
Speaking to smaller parties during their visit to the president-elect’s office, Mahama stated that while they believe in local capacity for printing, if situations continue where duplicates of ballot papers leak and give people the opportunity to stuff ballots, the alternative will be to print the papers abroad and bring them into the country.
He called on security printers to come together and ensure that if they do not want to lose business, the issue must stop, as it undermines the electoral process.
Hassan Ayariga, the presidential candidate of the All People’s Congress (APC), has been telling John Dramani Mahama that his leadership as the next president of Ghana will determine whether the major political parties will have a say or if the country will regress to a military regime.
He explained that if John Mahama performs well, Ghana will continue to move forward as a democracy. However, if he fails, the military may intervene to rescue the country.
SOURCE: Mubarak Yakubu
