The Electoral Commission (EC) says it has not recruited New Patriotic Party (NPP) members as returning officers for the December elections.
The response comes in the wake of comments attributed to the former President during an interview at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Mahama also raised concerns about the EC’s impartiality in the upcoming elections claiming that the election management body had requested MPs and DCEs to disclose the names of NPP members during the recruitment of Returning Officers and their deputies.
“The allegation by former President Mahama that Ministers and DCEs were asked “to write the names of party apparatchiks and present them so that they would be appointed as the returning officers” IS NOT TRUE. The Commission rejects this unfounded allegation coming from the former President,” a statement signed by Fred Tetteh, the deputy director, research, monitoring and evaluation at the EC said.
According to the statement, the process of recruiting returning officers and their deputies was not only made public but conducted in an open, fair and transparent manner.
The EC said it received a total of 20,561 applications after a publication of the vacancy announcement in the Daily Graphic on 5 February, 2024.
“An in-house Committee was established to shortlist suitable applicants to be interviewed. For the information of the general public, all successful applicants at the interview have no less than 8 years of working experience with the Commission as Temporal Election Officials.”
