The Electoral Commission of Ghana has vehemently defended it’s decision to declare results of this year’s elections within 24 hours.
It is public knowledge that the electoral commission intends to announce winner of the hugely anticipated elections within 24 hours; which it believes would be feasible given the level of preparedness undertaken by the commission.
This move has drawn countless criticisms from the populace in recent times.
But speaking at a press conference in Accra, the chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, noted that the move is to help assuage tension that may erupt over delayed declaration of election results.
According to Mrs. Mensa the decision would help allay the fears and suspicions of persons, and ought to be wholeheartedly encouraged and applauded.
“Ordinarily, the intention of declaring elections is to minimize tension. After all, if you have the results why sit on it? Why wait on the result when you have the results? We all know that our media houses have in the past been able to present the results within some ten hours of the polls. If you put in place systems to ensure they release results on time, why the panic?”
“I think the panic should rather be the EC says it will declare the results after one week, then we should be panicking. But if you are bringing in efficiency and allaying the fears and suspicions of persons, I think that they should be commended and encouraged, and rather we should work together to achieve this. I think it’s a very simple process.” She explained.
Mrs. Mensa also noted that her outfit’s processes still remain manual and that the commission would not engage in any complexities in a bid to declare the results on time.
“Our processes still remain virtually manual and the EC is not engaging in some complex electronic tape and transmission of results to enable us to achieve that. It is still a very simple process”.She stressed.
Touching on the special voting exercise which is slated to take place today Tuesday, December 1, the commission’s chairperson said all is set for the exercise.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHZ|Ghana
