The Director of Elections for Team Ken, Joojo Rocky Obeng has made a couple of spurious claims relative to PROXY Voting that impugn his competence and expose him as totally bankrupt of comprehension of elections and related matters in the NPP and Ghana as a whole.
In a Facebook post, he contends that:
- Proxy voting is a means to rig the elections
- One person can vote for 30-50 people in a Proxy voting
- Some chiefs he failed to name, intend to coerce delegates in his camp to relinquish their voting rights to others through Proxy ostensibly to have those votes cast for a different candidate.
At the outset, let me state without a shred of equivocation that these claims are conceived out of crass ignorance and published in exaggeration to create confusion and chaos ahead of the elections, and ultimately set the tone to reject the obvious defeat staring them in the face.
Any serious candidate would fire Mr. Joojo outrightly for the public display of cluelessness, incompetence and total lack of understanding of what Proxy Is and how it works.
Permit me to take Mr. Elections Director on a soothing trip full of free education and enlightenment:
1. Proxy voting is a means to rig the elections
His contention that Proxy is a means of rigging elections is outright false. Proxy voting since 1992 to date, has proven to be an effective and just means to prevent voter disenfranchisement and has been a non-negotiable element to ensure free, fair, transparent, and all-inclusive elections globally.
The electoral laws of Ghana, including all CIs and NPP internal elections regulations for decades give explicit recognition to Proxy as a MUST, not an option in the conduct of elections. Therefore, removing Proxy voting from the NPP Presidential Primaries would violate the electoral laws of Ghana and make nonsense of the long standing electoral guidelines of the NPP.
Having said that, Proxy voting is structured such that nobody can use it to rig any elections. There have been loads of electoral disputes since 1992 and it’s interesting to note that none of these disputes bothered on Proxy voting. When NPP went to the Supreme Court in 2012, Proxy voting was never part of the electoral malpractices alike the elections petition of the NDC in 2020.
I would encourage Mr. Joojo to read this part very carefully as it contains correspondences from the party relative to Proxy voting in the 2023 NPP Presidential Primaries and so he can save the party from this needless tension.
In a statement dated 13th October, 2023 and signed by the then Secretary to the NPP Presidential Elections Committee, Williams Yamoah, he asserted that “to successfully submit a proxy application, applicants should show proof of their absence or the cause of their inability to be physically present at the voting centre. Supporting documentation: An affidavit or declaration from a Commissioner of Oath is required for every proxy application.”
This puts stringent requirements on applicants to prevent misrepresentation, fraud and abuse of the system. It also ensures that the right people with genuine situations are approved to use proxy.
He further stated that “the proxy list will be made available to the public for scrutiny and that any alleged fraudulent statements could be contested and forwarded to the relevant national body for additional examination”. This layer empowered all the candidates to make the proxy list fraud-abuse-rig free.
It is clear, from the rigorous and transparent processes employed by the NPP that no one can use Proxy to rig the elections. In case Mr. Joojo is not aware, Proxy list was given to all the candidates in 2023 to go through before the final register was compiled and given to the candidates again to examine it. It’s therefore strange that, he will make such false claim that proxy will be used to rig the elections.
2. One person can vote for 30-50 people in a Proxy voting
Again, it’s false that in proxy, one person can vote for 30-50 people. In fact, the electoral laws of Ghana and that of the NPP do not allow one person to vote for even 2 people in proxy.
In a statement issued by Williams Yamoah ahead of the Special Delegates Elections in August 2023, it was stated that “a person can only be nominated as a proxy if they are a delegate for the Special Electoral College and cannot be nominated more than once.”
So clearly, one person cannot vote for 30-50 people in proxy as falsely stated by Mr. Joojo. Let me go further to educate him that in proxy, you can only vote for a person that you share same constituency with. For instance, as a voter in New Juaben South, i can only vote for someone in New Juaben south in a proxy. I cannot vote for even someone in New Juaben North regardless of how close the two constituencies are.
3 Northern Chiefs forcing Delegates to do Proxy
His claim that there are chiefs in the north who are forcing Ken’s delegates to give their votes to allies of other candidates in proxy is a total hogwash. Mr. Joojo conveniently refused to mention the names of the said chiefs and also, the names of their supposed delegates who are victims of this elusive crime are conspicuously missing.
This false allegation is part of a grand scheme by Ken’s Team to disrespect the chiefs in the northern part of Ghana and create tribal chaos in NPP in order to win Akans votes. This act is shameful and condemnable. Every sensible person knows that nobody can force anybody to relinquish their votes or assign their voting right to another in proxy.
As I stated earlier, before a proxy can be established, applicants would show proof of their absence or the cause of their inability to be physically present at the voting centre and submit supporting documentation including affidavit or declaration from a Commissioner of Oath.
With this, no Chief can force anybody into proxy. NPP delegates must treat this nonsense with the contempt it deserves.
Let me end by reiterating the point that no serious candidate will entertain Mr. Joojo as Director of Elections for a second for the public display of cluelessness, incompetence and confusion. It’s a shame.
Author: Charles Opoku Presidoo
