Dr. Peter Appiahene’s appointment to the Electoral Commission (EC) board has been defended by Ernest Kumi, a member of the NPP’s communications team in Ghana.
Mr. Kumi argued that simply having a party card or speaking on behalf of a party cannot establish affiliation.
He used Charlotte Osei who was appointed as the former chairperson of the EC as an illustration of the NPP’s willingness to tolerate perceived bias in the commission.
He claimed that Mrs. Osei’s reluctance to announce the election results in 2016 was proof of her backing for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
“Charlotte Osei was more than Asiedu Nketia. The only difference is that Asiedu Nketia was sitting in an official position of the NDC.
“This is the Charlotte Osei that after all journalists collated election results when it was obvious that NPP has won massively, close to a million votes, she was having it difficult to come out to declare the election because of her own personal sentiments.
“Asiedu Nketia is an NDC member, sitting in an NDC office with an official position but he is not different from Charlotte Osei yet we worked under her. It is because the independence of the Commission is established and cannot be affected by an appointee,” he said on Adom FM’s morning show Dwaso Nsem Wednesday.
As of late, President Nana Akufo-Addo appointed Dr. Appiahene and Hajia Salima Ahmed Tijani to the EC. The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers has demanded their resignation.
The two appointees have been accused by the NDC of being NPP supporters, endangering the confidence of all parties in the commission.
In a related news, at its meeting on Tuesday, April 18, the Functional Executive Committee of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) postponed making a decision regarding Dr. Emmanuel Jones-Mensah’s eligibility to run in the party’s primary elections for the Keta Constituency.
This came about after the FEC evaluated the report of a special committee that had been formed to decide on particular special appeals arising from the conclusions of the party’s vetting committees and had submitted its findings.
