Mahama admits using ‘illiterate’ agents for 2020 elections
Flag bearer of the leading opposition party the National Democratic Congress, John Dramani Mahama, has admitted that the party’s monitoring of the 2020 general elections was weak and unprofessional.
That could also confirm accusations by cadres that he sidelined them and chose to dine with inexperienced noisy foot soldiers during the campaign and conduct of the 2020 general elections. The repentant flag bearer, however, has indicated that in 2024 the party, under his watch, will deploy professionals and more educated personnel to monitor the 2024 elections at various levels.
According to him, a lot more expertise is required in many parts of the electoral process, such as the collation of election results. The former president said this will enable the party to police and monitor the polls in order to ensure the process is free and fair.
Speaking at the annual conference of the party’s Professional Forum in Accra, Mr. Mahama called on members of the forum to make themselves available for the 2024 general elections. “We must ensure that we have more professionals and more educated people coming into play in respect of policing and monitoring the elections at the grassroots level.
Collation of results is an important activity that the expertise that you people carry can help with, in terms of collating the party’s results in good time and also transmitting the results as most of you do in your professional work with information technology.”
In what may be described as a doublespeak, however, Mahama has consistently accused the Electoral Commission(EC) and its Chairperson, Madam Jean Adukwei Mensa, for what he described as “voter fraud and irregularities” in the 2020 polls. After much dithering and playing to the gallery, he and his bunch of lawyers filed a petition at the Supreme Court to challenge the outcome of the presidential elections, without providing pink sheets.
The apex court had no choice but to rule in favour of the EC and President Akufo-Addo. Mr. Mahama subsequently continued registering his disagreement with the final judgment of the Supreme Court, blaming his defeat on the decision of the Court not to allow the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission to testify in court.
He said the conduct of the court and the counsel for the Electoral Commission aided Jean Mensa to evade “accountability” for her work in the 2020 polls. Former President John Dramani Mahama also rejected claims that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) does not appeal to intellectuals in the country.
On the contrary, he said the NDC has a lot of intellectuals and professionals across every sector of the economy. “The perception has always been that mass parties do not have intellectuals and academic firepower. I mean just a fraction of the members of the Pro Forum in this auditorium and the self-introductions that you made clearly shows that pound for pound, we have on the side of the NDC sufficient intellectual and academic power to take on any party in this world, and we have proved it over the years,” he said.
The 2020 presidential candidate of the NDC said this when he spoke at the annual conference of the party’s Professionals Forum Annual Conference in Greater Accra on Thursday, April 30, 2021. Mr. Mahama at the conference also indicated that the NDC will deploy professionals and more educated personnel to monitor the 2024 elections at various levels.
According to him, a lot more expertise is required in many parts of the electoral process such as the collation of election results. “We must ensure that we have more professionals and more educated people coming into play in respect of policing and monitoring the elections at the grassroots level.
Collation of results is an important activity that the expertise that you people carry can help in terms of collating the party’s results in good times and also transmitting the result as most of you do in your professional work with information technology,” he added.
