Friday's special election in TainConstituency, Ghana's Brong Ahafo region is expected to determine which of thetwo presidential candidates would succeed outgoing President John Kufuor. Thiscomes after the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) failed in its bid to legallyrestrain the electoral commission from declaring the winner of Friday's specialelection and subsequently the next president of Ghana. The NPP also servednotice to the electoral commission that it would not be participating in theTain Constituency election, citing security concerns, which it claimed wouldsignificantly undermine the transparency of the election. But the mainopposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is encouraging its partisans tocome out and vote. Bernard Morna is a leading member of the opposition People'sNational Convention, which stayed neutral during the December 28 run-offelection. He tells reporter Peter Clottey that by citing security concerns, theruling NPP was acting irresponsible.
"Ican tell you that the security acted so professional to my amazement that allof us were asked to come down from our vehicles, including the former President(Jerry Rawlings). The vehicles were searched thoroughly and we were personallysearched so as to ensure that nobody went into Tain with any weaponry or withballot papers," Morna noted.
Hesaid there were incidents, which indicated voter irregularities, but that thosewere professionally dealt with by the security agents there.
"Indeedat the point of our entry (into Tain), we saw the former general secretary ofthe NPP whose car was searched and at that point we noticed that thumb printedballot papers for Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufu-Addo the NPP flag bearer were foundand they were taken out. And we are also informed that when the currentpresident got to Wenchi (in the Brong Ahafo region), the Wenchi chief told himthat the people of Tain were going to vote overwhelmingly for the NDC. And sothe president should go back to Accra to prepare to hand over power to an NDCelected president. So, I am also encouraged by the professional manner thesecurity agents are conducting themselves," he said.
Mornadescribed as irresponsible claims by NPP partisans of security intimidation.
"Ihold that to be a very preposterous and strange position coming from a partyand a government. The ruling party that controls the security of this nationturns around to say the security if the nation is bad then that should be thereason for which the people should vote them out because they have shown grossincompetence and gross incapability of managing the security of the nation thatyou can't even assure the people of Ghana that the security of something theycan rely on," Morna pointed out.
Hesaid it was unfortunate that the ruling party was complaining about thesecurity situation when it is in total control of the country's securityapparatus.
"Letus not forget that the president is the head of the National Security Counciland the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces. The vicepresident is the chairman of the Police Head Council and so in spite of all thesethey are telling us that the security of the nation is bad tells of the grossincompetence and incapability of this government. And that is the more reasonwhy they should be voted out quickly," he said.
Mornasaid the situation in the Tain Constituency is calm ahead of Friday's electioncontrary to claims by the ruling party.
"Itcouldn't have been for security reasons that they (NPP) went to court. Itwasn't for security reasons that Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufu-Addo did a pressconference to assure the people that they were going to hold a campaign andthat he was going to come. So, clearly the constituency is very safe. They canonly spew out these because they know that on the ground they are not popularand that the wind of change that is coming will sweep them away," Morna noted.
Hedescribed as unfortunate the cloud of instability the ruling party was tryingto portray in the Tain constituency.
"Soat the end of the day they can only come and create perception, especially tothe rest of the world that something bad was happening. We have all campaignedin this country and they contain the security of this country and at no pointin time did we complain about security difficulties. Is it because they aremeeting their waterloo today that they are claiming that security is not goodfor them? I still insist that if it is security that they are complaining aboutthen it indicates that this government is highly incompetent to manage theaffairs of this nation," he said.