A former General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dan Botwe is kicking against suggestions by his fellow party members that extra judicial means should be employed in settling electoral disputes.
He described such views as wrong and must be strongly discouraged.
Following the determination of the election petition, most NPP big wigs are on record to have advised party members to seek to protect their ballots at the polling stations rather than hope to depend on the courts to settle any disputes.
[contextly_sidebar id=”gqosGYKkKdrnES616wwTteX22muvDvlj”]Lead counsel for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the land mark election petition, Philip Addison says it will be a “total waste of time” to pursue another election petition in the country.
Addressing NPP supporters in the UK in November, Vice Presidential candidate Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia told them that the party now has “a pretty good idea about what happened in 2012… We are going to make sure that the lessons are taken to heart and taken to the battle field.”
“What it has given us is a sense that we should never allow this to happen to us again,” he added.
But speaking at the launch of a book by pollster Ben Ephson on the 2012 election, the Okere Member of Parliament (MP) voiced his disagreements over such pronouncements.
He said no political party would want to win an election by going to the Supreme Court “but I don’t agree with those who say that we will not go to the Supreme Court” if the need arises.
Dan Botwe was optimistic that the 2012 election petition has taught both the Electoral Commission (EC) and political parties in Ghana a lesson.
“I will wish that we don’t have a situation that will take us to the Supreme Court, maybe the consolation is that we are going to learn so much from it such that it will not even be necessary to go to the Supreme Court because one will lose knowing that the steps were fair,” he remarked.
In a related development, the NPP leading member cautioned against denigrating the EC saying, such an attitude is dangerous.
“It is important that we do not demonize the Electoral Commission” he said, adding that it is the responsibility of every citizen to work towards ensuring that we have “the Electoral Commission that we all deserve and want to work with so that we will all run our elections in a very peaceful atmosphere.”
He advised that Ghanaians should criticize the EC when necessary “but at the end of the day, it is important we all accept the Electoral Commission as the constitutional body to regulate and govern our elections.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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