Only Electoral Commission Can Declare Winners�Afari Gyan

The Electoral Commission (EC), has reiterated that it is the only body which is legally mandated to declare the winner of an election and not the media. �You can report on polling station results but the ultimate announcement of the winner is the preserve of the EC,� Dr. K. Afari-Gyan, the Electoral Commissioner said at Ho on Monday. Speaking at a workshop on �Improving the quality of information in the electoral process� for about 34 representatives of various media organisation in the municipality, Dr Afari-Gyan explained that the provisional results of an election which could be readily available to the media may not necessary tally with final results. Besides, he said that issues such as irregularities, fraud, rigging �or even mistakes during the computation of the results� could only be addressed by the EC. Dr Afari-Gyan also called on the media to take a keen interest in the local government elections, saying that every media house had a duty to inform the public about the roles that the local government institutions played. The Electoral Commissioner also touched on the issue of accreditation for media personnel during elections and pointed out that polling stations were restricted areas, and that made it crucial for representatives of media houses who were assigned to report on elections to have valid accreditations. The workshop topics included monitoring and observation, electoral language and terminologies, among others. In a contribution, Mr W. Gaitu, Volta Regional Director of the Ghana News Agency, advised media practitioners to demonstrate a high sense of professionalism and neutrality during elections in the dissemination of information of results, because elections evoked emotions.