Mrs Pauline Adobea Dadzawa, a Member of the Electoral Commission (EC), on Friday called on Ghanaians, particularly political party leaders to accept the outcome of the December 7 polls.
She said “elections are as good as accepting the results” and that people should be civil enough to claim victory or defeat to give the Ghanaian democracy a plus.
Mrs Dadzawa made the call in Cape Coast at the end of a two –day training workshop for more than 30 journalists from the print and electronic media in the Central Region.
She said the EC has put in place measures to ensure that the elections are free and fair with very credible results.
The workshop which organised by the EC in collaboration with USAID was on the theme: “Enhancing effective media’s participation in Elections.”
It was geared towards educating the media on the electoral process and their role to enhance peaceful and credible polls.
She noted that getting credible and acceptable results depends on stakeholders and urged the political parties to engage polling agents who are intelligent, loyal, reliable and physically fit and can easily understand simple instructions.
According to her, counting of the ballots is a very crucial aspect of the election processes, hence the need for all to be vigilant to prevent anyone from manipulating the ballots.
She urged the media to play their role effectively to ensure incident free and fair elections.
Mr Christian Owusu Parry Acting Director of Public Affairs of the EC who took the participants through “provision of polling stations” and “types of list used for polling” said in the 2008 elections, the indelible ink used accounted for many of the rejected ballots recorded and advised that people should allow the ink on their fingers to dry up before folding their papers.
He also said only people validated by the verification machine would be allowed to vote.
Mr Parry asked all eligible voters to endeavour to make horizontal thumb printing on the ballot paper and fold it vertically to avoid the thumb print over lapping.
He warned that on voting day all polling stations would remain restricted areas and people should therefore leave the station after casting their ballots.
Source:GNA
