President Akufo-Addo (left) exchanging pleasantries with former President Mahama
The Electoral Commission and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, first and second respondents respectively in the ongoing election petition trial, have asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the case brought before it by flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress in the 2020 general election, John Dramani Mahama.
Mr Mahama is challenging the declaration of President Nana Akufo-Addo as the winner of the December 7, 2020 general election.
President Akufo-Addo, in his preliminary objection statement, notes that some of Mr Mahama’s arguments are exaggerated and absurd.
“At the heart of the case of Petitioner are the unfounded and exaggerated extrapolations petitioner makes out of the erroneous interchanging of total votes cast for total valid votes cast [by the Electoral Commission] when declaring the results of the Presidential Election on 9th December 2020,” the President argued in his objection statement filed by his lawyers.
President Akufo-Addo further states that the Techiman South results, based on which Mr Mahama launched his election petition, were already available, saying the NDC flagbearer’s petition is with “mischief as his prime motive.”
“This simply defies logic and is utterly untenable. In effect, petitioner entreats the Court to embark on a fruitless exercise to order a second election based on a skewed hypothetical analysis which completely ignores the actual votes obtained by himself as well as all other candidates in the Techiman South Constituency.
“Effectively, the petitioner’s claims are anchored on unfounded hypothesis, conjectures and imagination,” the President stated.
“Paragraphs 1 through to 30 of the petition merely recount allegations of arithmetical errors contained in parts of the declaration [of President Akufo-Addo] as President and the subsequent correction by the 1st respondent on 10th December 2020.”
“There is no challenge mounted by the petitioner about the conduct of the election at the 38,622 polling stations and 311 special voting centres in the country,” he added.
According to the President, the failure by Mr Mahama to show that the alleged irregularities and errors complained of affected the outcome of the election is sufficient to warrant the court’s decision to dismiss the petition.
In his witness statement, Peter Mac Manu, the NPP’s 2020 campaign manager, also notes that the entire petition is premised on the “insignificant inaccuracies and slips in the ‘declaration of the results’ of the election, rather than the validity of the election and the actual results thereof”.
“These slips and errors did not affect the outcome of the election, and I say that Nana Akufo-Addo won the presidential election of 7 December 2020,” he said.
He reiterated that the petition does not disclose any attack on the validity of the elections held throughout the 38,622 polling stations and 311 special voting centres, describing Mr Mahama’s averments of vote padding as “empty”.
The petition, Mr Mac Manu added, is a ruse and face-saving gimmick deployed by former President Mahama after the official results declared by the EC Chairperson and election observers showed that he had lost the election.
No vote padding
On her part, the EC Chairperson, Jean Mensa, asserts that the commission did not pad President Akufo-Addo’s votes, as alleged by the petitioner.
“A tabulation of all valid votes obtained by all 12 candidates as declared by the EC on 9th December 2020 and captured on Form 13 adds up to a total of 13,121,111,” she said.
“The calculations showed that the 2nd Respondent had obtained more than 50% of the valid votes. It was also clear that whatever results were outstanding at the time could not mathematically change the more than 50% of the valid votes as obtained by the 2nd Respondent,” the EC added.
On the Techiman South results, she indicated that the results have since been released and have vindicated the “mathematics based on which the result was declared on 9th December 2020.”
Defying the court
Mr Mahama has, however, refused to file his witness statement as ordered by the Court last Wednesday.
Counsel for Mr Mahama have rather filed for stay of proceedings directing the court to halt the hearing.
Mr Mahama wants the court to halt the hearing of the substantive case until a determination is made on his request for review on the dismissal of his application for interrogatories.
Objection
However, President Akufo-Addo has objected to the application for stay of proceedings.
In a document signed by Kwaku Asirifi, one of President Akufo-Addo’s lawyers, he described the request by Mr Mahama as “unmeritorious and calculated to stall the hearing of the petition”.
According to President Akufo-Addo, Mr Mahama was well aware of the strict 42-day timeline imposed on the Supreme Court to deal with the election petitions.
Lawyers of President Akufo-Addo argue that the request was deliberately made late as part of a plot to stampede the clear timelines imposed on the Supreme Court. They contend that Mr Mahama could have filed his interrogatories request shortly after filing his petition on December 30, 2020 or at least on January 9 when he received the EC and President Akufo-Addo’s response.
“There are no exceptional circumstances occasioning a miscarriage of justice that warrant the grant of the instant application for stay of proceedings,” he said.
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