‘Let’s turn disappointment into opportunity’ – Mahama rallies NDC to register for 2020 polls
The 2020 NDC flagbearer has rallied NDC faithful to register massively ahead of the general elections despite a “diabolic” attempt by the government to disenfranchise the many.
At a late night press conference Thursday, John Mahama asked his supporters to “channel their disappointment into an opportunity” and “turn up to register in their teeming numbers.”
Wearing black and looking somber, Ghana’s former leader who is seeking a comeback chastised the Supreme Court judges for a ‘confusing’ and “deeply disappointing” judgment.
Unanimous, the seven judges agreed that the older voter ID cards should be excluded from the new mass voter registration exercise.
A judgment which the NDC flagbearer maintained fitted into the governing New Patriotic Party’s “long-held agenda to exclude vast sections of the population.”
He spent time to explain the NPP’s political history as an exclusionist party while the NDC he said has a mass appeal first seen in the drafting of the 1992 constitution that sought the views of traders and informal workers.
“NPP has always stood for an exclusive governance structure which seeks to leave out the ordinary people of the country”, he said and stressed, the party is for “an elite few who consider themselves owners of the nation”.
Explaining why the Supreme Court judgement is bound to exclude the ordinary people, Mahama said the passport and Ghana card requirement for registration is not accessible to millions.
Under the new requirements, a verified Ghanaian can vouch for not more than 10 others who do not have the required proof of citizenship.
Nonetheless Mahama suspected that the new requirements is deliberate ploy to discourage eligible voters from turning up to register for the December 2020 polls.
But he urged Ghanaians to consider the turn of events at the Supreme Court as a “minor setback” that can be remedied if they braced to get the new voter ID cards inspite of the ‘frustrating’ process.
“We can still make our voices heard. We must be willing to make the necessary sacrifices in the present circumstances.”
John Mahama expressed his conviction that “no politically engineered register can save this government from the judgment of the people.”
He called the president, Nana Akufo-Addo, a “desperate incumbent” who sees his political survival through the prism of manipulation.”
He also condemned the Electoral Commission as a “willing tool in the execution of a diabolic agenda.”