The protesters, carrying placards with slogans such as “No clean register, no peace” and “EC stop the rigging, let the people decide”, marched in all regions of the country, according to the same sources and local media.
They responded to a call by the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), which accuses the Electoral Commission of falsifying voters’ lists to favour the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its presidential candidate, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia.
He will be up against former President John Mahama, the NDC candidate, and the race between these two favourites is set to be tight.
The NDC and several other opposition parties claim that the Electoral Commission colluded with the NPP to falsify the voters’ register by including more than 50,000 names of deceased people on the rolls and excluding some voters.
The Commission rejected this accusation, explaining that these changes are simply intended to update the lists and ensure transparency.
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In the capital Accra, NDC chairman Johnson Asiedu Nketiah addressed the crowd of protesters several times before submitting a petition to the Electoral Commission demanding an independent audit of the new lists to verify that there was no fraud.
He also warned of the potential consequences of electoral fraud. “If you stand aside today and let the conflict escalate into war, you will be drafted into the army to fight and die. We are not asking the electoral commission for a favour, we are demanding our right to free and fair elections,” he said.
The NDC plans to continue the protests until the Commission carries out the requested audit.
“We just want fair elections. If the voter register is not clean, how can we trust the results?” said Francis Dontoh, a protester in Accra. “We deserve to be heard,” because “we need to make sure that every legitimate vote counts and that no one cheats the system,” he added.
The electoral commission, for its part, urged the opposition to engage in dialogue with the electoral commission rather than demonstrate.
By Le360 Africa (with AFP)
09/18/2024 at 08:48
