Kofi Agyepong
6 November 2008
The Deputy Minister for Tourism, Kofi Osei Ameyaw has thrown a challenge to Prof. Atta Mills, Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress to substantiate his allegation that top government officials had told him that the government has plans to rig the elections in December.
Prof. Mills is reported to have said in the Central Region that a close friend of his informed him of how the NPP intends to rig the December polls.
In an interview with the ADM yesterday, Mr. Osei Ameyaw said, "The learned Professor was once Vice President of this country and should either act responsibly or simply pipe down... How can he say that a friend of his had told him that some friends of theirs in government have told them that the government has plans to rig the elections...?"
As a former Vice President who claims to have information that some people are about to rig an election, Osei Ameyaw said, the responsible thing for Prof. Mills to do is to alert the security services because rigging of an election is a criminal offence and keeping such information means abetting criminality.
"He should prove it or pipe-down," he said. Mr. Osei Ameyaw said Prof. Mills might have come up with the allegation so as to create unnecessary doubts about the credibility of the elections.
He said, "it sounds defeatist for the NDC to always talk about rigging of elections, without giving any shred of evidence... They are probably paranoid...They have seen the signs that the NPP is winning so they are crying wolf even before the elections... even when it is their own parliamentary candidates who are confessing in court that they have been involved in double voter registration and all forms of electoral malpractices."
Mr. Osei Ameyaw said he doubted the motive with which the NDC wrote to foreign embassies alleging that the NPP has plans to rig the December polls.
"With NDC, anything can happen if you underrate them," he said.
The Deputy Minister who is also the Member of Parliament for Asuogyaman constituency said the December elections would be a peaceful one and called on the political parties to be positive about the polls.
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