2020 elections one of the most transparent since 1992 – Professor Gyampo

In the face of countless allegations of vote-rigging and fraud against the Electoral Commission by the National Democratic Congress and its flagbearer, John Dramani, a senior lecturer at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo has praised the Electoral Commission for making the 2020 elections transparent.

Professor Gyampo believes the recently held election was devoid of opaqueness and that the Electoral Commission was open and honest with all parties involved in the electoral process.

Gyampo admitted on Net2 TV that as a matter of principle he was against the compilation of a new voters’ register but he was impressed with how the Electoral Commission went about the exercise amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

He enumerated some successes he observed with the electoral process which ranges from the registration exercise to the voting.

“The EC did well. Some of us our position was that it was needless to have a new voters register. I was part of the Electoral Reforms Committee and we argued that there should not be any major electoral activity including the compilation of a new register in an election year. Some of us spoke against it but the Electoral Commission stood its ground and did it nicely.”

“After the registration exercise, the transparency with which they did everything was unprecedented. The BVDs also functioned well. The voting process was also seamless because these BVDs worked well. So when it comes to elections I think everything went well. If you compare it to previous elections, I think this was one of the most transparent,” he said on Net 2 TV. There have been a few concerns with the process in its totality but Gyampo opines that at this stage in Ghana’s democratic dispensation it is not abnormal for the country to record few cases of violence or errors.

He says Ghana’s democracy is at a stage where such issues should be expected and that based on the progress made since 1992, he has no doubt the country will perfect its electoral system in the coming years.

Professor Gyampo also advised the NDC and all feuding parties in the elections to go to court and seek redress.

He spoke against the bastardization of institutions saying that to protect the gains made by the country, aggrieved parties must go to the court to have their grievances addressed.

“But there is a place to go when there are allegations of rigging and other election malpractices. There, they truly understand what the Pink Sheet means. They know what it means to say an election result has been rigged. Rather than telling many of us who do not even know and understand what a Pink Sheet must contain, I respectfully plead with the political parties by the mercies of God to gather their watertight evidence and go tell the story about their misgivings on the elections to those who understand and have the capacity to adjudicate the issues. There can be no bias in such adjudicate processes when the evidence is clear,” he added.