Security analyst, Col. Festus Aboagye, has defended the presence of party supporters at collation centres in the just-ended presidential and parliamentary elections, arguing that it is essential to ensure transparency and vigilance.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile programme on Saturday, Col. Aboagye highlighted the lack of trust in the Electoral Commission (EC) as a key factor driving people to stay near collation centres in the constituencies.

“Because of the suspicions around the EC, the integrity issue and the trust deficit, that is why people want to be there at the polling stations because of vigilance,” he explained.

“I disagree completely with the calls that were made that, when you finish voting, go home. The vigilance can be done by party agents, but the presence of the supporters too is needed.”

Col. Aboagye emphasized that the presence of supporters is not to incite chaos but to ensure that election results are not manipulated by corrupt officials. According to him, such vigilance is crucial in a system where there have been past instances of electoral disputes.

“People have a strategy to steal the elections. I’m not mentioning any political party though. But you need your supporters there to ensure that a corrupt EC official doesn’t manipulate things,” he said. “To resolve these things, there must be presence of supporters, not for chaos but for vigilance.”

The security analyst also cited a past case where a disputed constituency election result allowed an “illegal candidate” to remain in parliament for four years, underscoring the importance of safeguarding electoral integrity.

Col. Aboagye concluded by pointing out systemic flaws in Ghana’s electoral processes, which, he believes, create an environment that fuels mistrust and necessitates the involvement of party supporters at critical stages of the voting process.

Police parties such as the NDC have been condemned by some observers for instructing its supporters to mass up at collation centres.

The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) has strongly condemned the political parties for encouraging their supporters to invade collation centres.

Speaking on JoyNews' Newsfile, the Project Manager, Senior Researcher and Analyst at CODEO, Rhoda Osei Afful, pointed out that these centres are carefully located with security arrangements in place to prevent disruptions and that incidents of supporter interference have, in some cases, delayed the collation and subsequent declaration of winners.

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