The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said it supports Bernard Mornah’s caution to the Electoral Commission over the voter registration exercise.
According to the letter inviting Bernard Mornah to the CID headquarters in Accra, the PNC National Chairman is quoted as having said that he will resist every attempt by the EC to compile a new register.
“People who are already Ghanaians and already registered are going to be taken out of the voters’ register. Don’t think confusion will come at the registration station but if confusion comes there, you think the EC staff will be safe? We will beat each other there and we will kill each other there if that is what the EC wants to lead this nation to,” the letter quoted Mr. Mornah as saying.
The PNC Chairman reportedly made the remarks at a press conference organized by the Inter-Party Resistance Against New Register (IPRAN) on May 26, 2020.
But the NDC in a press statement released on Friday, May 29, 2020, and signed by its Deputy General Secretary, Peter Boamah Otokunor said: “We wish to state our unequivocal support for the caution Comrade Mornah offered to the EC at the said press conference, in respect of the potential outbreak of political violence at registration centres, as a result of the exclusion of the existing voter’s ID card from the list of identification requirements for the new voter registration exercise the EC intends to undertake.
“For purposes of emphasis, the NDC wholly endorses and subscribes fully to the comments made by Comrade Bernard Mornah.”
Meanwhile, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service has invited Bernard Mornah for questioning.
Mr. Mornah is expected to be at the CID headquarters at 10 am on Tuesday, June 2, 2020.
He is being invited to assist in investigations over the comments attributed to him.
Bernard Mornah’s CID invitation an attempt to intimidate us – IPRAN
However, the Inter-Party Resistance Against New Voters’ Register (IPRAN) has accused government of using the Ghana Police Service to intimidate its members.
The group made the accusation on the back of the invitation to Bernard Mornah, who is a leading member of the group.
“We are appalled by the decision of the CID to kowtow to the whims and caprice of some individuals who have been irked by not just the spirited resistance of Comrade Bernard Mornah in particular but by the Coalition as a whole. The Coalition knows that this is a calculated attempt by the Government through the Police to intimidate and cow the Coalition into submission on the heated matter of the compilation of a new voters’ register ahead of the 2020 elections,” the coalition noted in a statement.
The group in its statement further vowed that it will not soften its stance despite the supposed intimidation.
“Let the Police beware that this is not going to soften the poignant stance of the Coalition on the ill-advised and the needless decision to compile a new voters’ register which is going to disenfranchise a vast majority of the people coupled with the fact that it is at a huge cost to the poor taxpayer.”
sOURXE: Ernest Arhinful – Citinewsroom
