EC Boss: NPP's Electoral Fraud Allegations Are "Completely False"

The Chairman of Ghana�s Electoral Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has described allegations of electoral fraud being peddled against the EC by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as �completely false�. The NPP claim they have been robbed of victory through the connivance between the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and EC officials. Per the EC�s official figures, President Mahama secured 50.7% of votes while NPP�s Nana Akufo-Addo polled 47.7%. However, the party insist there is evidence to show that Ghanaians voted overwhelmingly for them and that the results had been manipulated to favour President-elect John Dramani Mahama. The main opposition NPP say they are thus considering legal action to annul President Mahama's victory in Friday's election. But speaking in an interview with BBC�s News Day, Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan said the NPP can go to court to challenge the results of Friday�s poll if they feel hard done by since that is the only option available to them. Whiles admitting that the only problem that characterized Friday�s election was the breakdown of verification machines which was being used for the first time across the country, the EC boss described the NPP�s allegations of electoral fraud as �completely false�, pointing out that the NPP has so far failed to provide evidence to back its claims. �...as soon as we had all the 275 constituencies results collated, we were ready to announce it to the whole nation; there was no need to wait...The electoral law makes provisions for appeals if you feel aggrieved, so far they [NPP] have made only allegations without any substantive evidence...they can go to court, that is part of the electoral law, at this stage that is the only avenue open to them. �Remember that this is the first time that we used such machines and it�s on a large scale; about 26,000 of them and with the little training that we did, it was expected that not everything will perform to perfection and there were lapses in performance so that we had to continue the election into the following day,� Afari Gyan said.