Considering the rate at which the mistakes are popping up, I could not but very well agree that Ghana’s once enviable Electoral Commission (EC) is today a pale shadow of itself; reduced to an “ERRORTORIAL COMMISSION”.
Journalist Manasseh Awuni Azure was spot on with the tag on the EC because almost all the 2020 general Election related things that the Jean Mensa-led Commission had churned out, are replete with grave and unpardonable errors.
The latest I have come across is captured at paragraph 38 of the EC’s response to H.E. John Mahama’s petition in the Supreme Court.
Now, for a better appreciation of the issue, I need to first provide the background.
The EC had claimed that after the 9th December 2020 election results declaration, some 4 Constituencies in Greater Accra region recorded an update in the election results of which the net effect is 1,561 and so had had to factor that (figure) in the various corrections made in the press release of December 10, 2020.
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To ask, is it not very curious that the EC would say it has recorded election results update (extra valid votes) long after declaration of the same results??
Now, if you attempt to check the EC’s December 10th 2020 press release, no where has the discovered 1,561 figure featured.
The press release of December 10th, 2020 of the Electoral Commission has 13,119,460 as total valid votes and not the 13, 121, 111 it had claimed in its averment or response to the Supreme Court petition.
It is also equally important to recall that among the many other errors the EC committed, it mentioned in the declaration (December 9th press conference) that Nana Akufo Addo got 51.595% whilst John Mahama got 47.366%.
Interestingly the percentages are markedly different from what Jean Mensa claimed on the press release of December 10th and the IRONICAL addition that the percentages that each of the 2 Presidential candidates got are never affected by the supposed corrections the EC sought to make.
The Jean Mensa-led EC is purely an Errortorial Commission!
By Koku Mawuli Nanegbe