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Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Jean Mensa has been accused of seeing herself as an appointee of President Akufo-Addo rather than the Head of a constitutionally instituted independent body.

According to a Private legal Practitioner who doubles as a member of the communication team of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Lawyer Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe, the claim by the Electoral Commission Chair that there was no violence in the just ended by-election at Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency is very regrettable as far as multi-party democracy is concerned in this country.

In a panel discussion on Radio Gold’s 'Alhaji and Alhaji' talk show, the NDC Communicator posited that “the observation made by the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) that some known uniformed National Security operatives attacked a police officer on duty for alerting them to move away from the polling officials in comparison with DCOP Alex Mensah, Director-General in charge of operations saying he has no idea who the masked men in the uniform were means that the masked men who were deployed are not part of the lawfully established security apparatus of this Republic”.

“It is important that this observation by CODEO collaborate exactly what the NDC has stated relating to the level of violence. So the claim by the EC Chairperson who today see herself as an appointee of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo rather than the Head of a constitutionally created independent body posits that there was no violence in the election is regrettable,” he stressed.

He therefore mentioned that the “laws of this country prevents anybody from raising any police force or military force or armed force without an act of Parliament. So quite clearly the involvement of these terror groups associated with the NPP for the sole purpose of intimidating, assaulting and brutalising persons going about their lawful constitutional duty of casting their votes can only be subversion on the 1992 Constitution”.