The presidential candidate of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), Dr Henry Herbert Lartey, has called President Nana Akufo-Addo to “congratulate him on his victory in the presidential election” and also concede, the Director of the Communication at the Presidency, Mr Eugene Arhin, has announced.
“The presidential candidate of the GCPP, Dr Henry Herbert Lartey, has just called President Akufo-Addo to concede defeat and congratulate him on his victory in the presidential election”, Mr Arhin wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday night.
The Electoral Commission is, however, yet to declare the winner of the presidential race even though the two biggest parties, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), have, in different press conferences, claimed they are well on course to winning.
Former President John Mahama has also come out to thank the electorate for “voting for change” and giving the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) “a working majority in the next Parliament”.
“Thank you Ghana”, the presidential candidate of the biggest opposition party, wrote on Facebook.
Earlier, his party had claimed it has won the majority of seats in Parliament.
The General Secretary of the party, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, indicated that the next parliament, from 2021, will be made up of a majority of NDC parliamentarians.
According to him, the NDC has secured 141 parliamentary seats so far.
Addressing the media and party supporters at the NDC’s headquarters on Tuesday, 8 December 2020, Mr Asiedu Nketiah expressed optimism that the NDC flagbearer, Mr John Mahama, was heading to victory, judging from the number of parliamentary seats won
He said: “We can project that President Mahama is heading toward victory because there is a very strong correlation between presidential and parliamentary results”.
He also raised concerns about some results collation challenges at the regional offices
He alleged that almost two hours to the official announcement of the presidential results by the Electoral Commission (EC), there are some regional offices where results are yet to be collated.
“Our officers are in Koforidua now at the EC offices but the Commission has not started any process of collation at all the regional level. So, what is happening?” he questioned.
He continued: “We want to call on the international community. We want to call on peace-loving Ghanaians, the traditional authorities to urge the Electoral Commission to do the right thing and to warn the commission that any false step will come along with serious consequences”.
On the flipside, the NPP’s IT Director, Mr Joe Anokye, who doubles as the Director-General of the National Communication Authority (NCA), dared the NDC earlier on Tuesday, to back its claim that it has won the majority of seats in Parliament in Monday’s general elections, with pink sheet evidence rather than just make pronouncements out of “emotions”.
Demonstrating the accuracy and efficiency of the NPP’s IT-facilitated election results management system and infrastructure to the media on Tuesday, 8 December 2020, Mr Anokye, who worked on several contracts at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA as a Senior Telecommunications Consultant, including supervising NASA’s Global Mission Telecommunication Wide Area Network (WAN) technical team, explained that: “Today, you are only seeing the output but if we tell you the operations [and] investments that the party has put into this [collation infrastructure], so, when we come and give the numbers, it’s not about emotions, it’s not about: ‘OK, we won these many parliamentary seats, so, a simple equation: it maps to presidential’, that’s not how it works”.
“If you have the pink sheets, please, show us and that’s what we are asking”, he demanded.
Through the election management system, Mr Anokye said the NPP is able to “generate the summary sheet and then collate the sheet at the constituency level, the regional summary sheet at the regional level and at the national level, so, before we go to these meetings, we do have our summary sheets, so, when the EC gives us a summary sheet, we have already generated one”.
“So, as we stand right now, with 97.32 per cent of all polling station [results] having come in – it’s amazing that as a political party, we are able to get 97 per cent of all polling station [results] coming in and we have the outstanding as 2.77 per cent – out of that, H.E. the President has 6,614,593. Former President John Mahama has 6,070,755; which translates to 51.45 per cent for H.E. the President and 47.22 per cent [for Mr Mahama].
“Now, what this means is that the outstanding is 1,080 polling stations. So, everyone knows the number of registered voters in all polling station, so, you can easily do the math and look at the difference and say – I agree with what the General Secretary said – that when all the votes are counted, we believe that HE the President will be [the winner]”, he projected.
At the same press conference, the General Secretary of the NPP, Mr John Boadu, accused the NDC of seeking to “ruin an extremely peaceful and well-conducted general elections, for which Ghanaians must be proud of”.
“Let us remain calm, steady and wait for the EC. The battle is still the Lord’s”, he noted.
