Pressure is mounting on the presidential candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr John Dramani Mahama to rein in rampaging supporters of his party who are protesting the result of the 2020 presidential election.
Mr Mahama and the NDC have rejected the result of the as declared by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mrs Jean Mensa.
She declared President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) president-elect 51.30% of the total valid votes cast.
President Akufo-Addo closest contender Mr Mahama also obtained 47.40 percent of the votes.
However, the former president has rejected the result, describing it as flawed and indicated his intentions to challenge the declaration by the EC.
Mr. Mahama and the NDC are yet to take a definite step to seek redress despite calls from many quarters for the party to head for the courts, which has left the party’s agitating followers hanging.
Supporters of the party and some executives have continued to take to the streets in protest of the result across the country despite an earlier caution from the Ghana Police Service.
According to them, the EC ‘cooked the figures in favour of the governing NPP and have demanded the Commission to declare the right result.
The protests, which have generally been small and with intermittent violent conducts, are beginning to grow bigger and more physical.
This is attracting various counteractions from the police.
The situation has attracted the concerns of the larger Ghanaian public who believe the silence of the NDC flagbearer on a definite course of action he plans to take to challenge the result has emboldened the party supporters on the streets.
Mr. Mahama’s apparent indecision, they have said, is a recipe for chaos as his supporters attempt to fill what they perceive as a power vacuum that would go against the party if stay quiet to wait for an unambiguous cause of action.
Meanwhile, some Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) including IMANI Ghana, Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) and Center for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana) have called on the NDC to fall on the Judiciary to have their grievances resolved.
According to them, legal recourse may be pursued even as peaceful demonstrations are carried out and urged the opposition to present their concerns to the law court for legal redress.
In a related development, the governing NPP has announced its intention to head to court to contest the Parliamentary results of some constituencies.
According to the party, its collated results do not correspond with the figures declared by the Electoral Commission (EC) in some of the constituencies.
General Secretary of the party, John Boadu, at a press conference in Accra said the party will seek redress at the court over such anomalies.
He stressed that the NPP is opting for legal action over protest marches, unlike the NDC which has also been protesting some results.
The governing party, he said, also disputes some of the parliamentary results but have not asked its supporters to go on the street to protest these results.
