The Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Prof John Evans Atta Mills, has said there is enough evidence that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is preparing to rig the December 7 polls. "Very senior and respected members of this country have been telling me that some senior members of the NPP have told them that they know they will not make it in this year's election based on their poor performance, but they will steal it. This is a common refrain from the NPP. Those who tell me indicate their sources and I can't discount that," he alleged. Prof. Mills made the allegation when he and some leading members of the NDC met a delegation of an ECOWAS pre-election Fact Finding Mission to Ghana, led by the former Interim President of Liberia, Prof Amos Sawyer in Accra on Sunday. According to Prof Mills, who said it would not be fair to mention the names of people who made the allegations, although this was the third time he was contesting the elections as a presidential candidate, he had never seen such desperation from the NPP to win by all means. Prof. Kofi Awoonor, a Council of Elders member of the NDC, said the credibility of the ECOWAS election monitoring team had been in doubt because of what had happened in Togo after the death of former President Eyadema and the recent Nigerian elections. He urged the ECOWAS team to be focused and determined to ensure that the December polls in Ghana were free, fair, transparent and peaceful. He claimed that some institutions in Ghana and other governments were assisting the NPP government to rig the election, irrespective of the consequences, and asked why Ghanaians "must be sacrificed at the altar of global exigency." "We can tell you that a plan is afoot to rig the elections. We are looking up to you, be an independent arbiter and a real observer," Prof. Awoonor added. A leading member of the NDC, Mr Ato Ahwoi, alleged that both the state owned media and the security agencies had been compromised to give undue advantage to the NPP, a situation which frowned on the face of fair play and also worked to the detriment of the other opposition parties. "Things are happening in such a manner that all the opposition parties are being short-changed," he claimed. He stated that although he had been a minister of state for a long time, he had never seen the display of such huge amount of money being displayed by the NPP and its ministers. The General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Aseidu Nketiah, said some aggrieved leading members of the NPP who felt that what their party was about to undertake was not right had leaked documents on how the NPP intended to rig the election to the opposition parties. He said after critically assessing what was contained in the document against what was happening prior to the election; there was every indication that the NPP was going to rig the elections. Dr Christine Amoako Nuamah, another leading member of the NDC, also said that there could be no peace without fair play and justice. Prof. Sawyer said despite all the challenges that seemed to be facing the Ghanaian electoral process, the entire West African sub-region as looking up to Ghana to set another example for them to build their institutions like what pertained in Ghana. He said the team would interact with all major stakeholders of the election in "their bid to ensure that the election passed off smoothly. Prof. Ade Adefuye, ECOWAS Good Governance Advisor, said the team was taking the election seriously , and that very soon a 200-member team of observers would arrive to monitor the elections, adding that "they will arrive early enough to cover the entire country". He indicated that ECOWAS was not and would not support any political party in Ghana. He said although the COWAS election team was not perfect, it was working hard to ensure that democratic culture became part of life of the people in the sub-region. Source: Daily Graphic