<<Print>>The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has denied claims by the governing National Democratic Congress that it singled out constituencies in the Volta Region to support its claims that the current voters register is bloated.
According to NPP, such claims are “false.”
The NPP on Wednesday revealed that the current national voters’ register is bloated and filled with names of over 70,000 Togolese and minors.
The party argues that: “Indeed, out of the thirteen (13) constituencies Dr. Bawumia listed as having dramatic increases, only three (3), i.e, Ketu South, Hohoe and Nkwanta North are in the Volta Region.”
The General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia at a press conference today [Wednesday] accused the NPP of deliberately portraying the Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions, which are usually seen as NDC strongholds, as major places where foreigners were registered.
“The claim by the NPP that persons from Togo and Cote D’Ivoire have had their names on the electoral register is not only fraudulent but also constitute a gratuitous attack on the people of the Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions,” he said.
The NDC’s scribe added that “as far as we [NDC] are concerned this claim is a continuation of the NPPs long standing affinity to tribal politics through which they associate people from certain ethnic and tribal extraction with wrongdoing and heap unsavory comments on them. This is unfortunate.”
Meanwhile, in a statement signed by the NPP’s Director of Communications, Nana Akomea, Ghanaian must ignore the NDC’s allegations.
“The original documents of the Togolese register submitted by the NPP to the Electoral Commission has clear headings, names, ages and gender of people. All Asiedu Nketia has to do, is to also access the Togolese register and check out the cross-border registrations for himself.”
“The NPP has presented evidence for examination by all parties as a basis for the call for a new voters’ register. How such a call can be described by Asiedu Nketia as motivated by malice, just to raise political tensions and mask the NPP’s disunity, is difficult to understand.”
The statement also said “the NPP is motivated by the same concerns for the integrity of the Electoral process, that motivated John Mahama to remark for example in 2008, that, a register over 50% of the population is unheard of; that motivated Afari Gyan to remark in 2008, that, a register in excess of 50% of the population will be statistically unacceptable by world standards.”