John Dramani Mahama who is the petitioner in the case is asking the supreme court to cause a rerun of the 2020 presidential election between himself and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (second respondent) on the basis that the Electoral Commissioner, Madam Jean Mensah (Second respondent) per the figures which she declared as the result had none of the 12 candidates obtaining more than 50% of the total valid votes as required by the constitution.
In a back-and-forth banter with members of the bench in the ongoing petition, the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia who is a witness for the petitioner during cross examination said he was unable to furnish the court with votes obtained by his party’s candidate in the election based on their collated results.
His answer to the supreme court judges has many critics highlighting it as a moment of damage to the NDC’s case.
However, Sammy Gyamfi who doubles as the party’s National Communications Director in a Facebook post has explained why the party’s collated results, is not significant in arguing their case.
Drawing on the similarities and differences between the NDCs 2020 petition and New Patriotic Party’s 2012 petition, Sammy Gyamfi points that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in 2012 did not present his own collated results to support his case despite asking the court to annul portions of the total valid votes and declare him winner of the presidential election based on the resultant outcome.
“For the records, candidate Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia did not present their own collated figures or results to the Supreme Court in the 2012/2013 election petition.
I dare anybody who disputes this fact to point me to any paragraph in the 2012 election Petition where the petitioners presented their own collated figures to the Supreme Court to show that they won the 2012 presidential election.
In that case, the petitioners presented the EC’s own declared figures to the court and asked the court to annul about 4 million votes on grounds that those votes had been affected by alleged legal infractions and irregularities.
The petitioners then proceeded to deduct those votes from the results/figures declared by the EC and sought a declaration from the court that candidate Akufo-Addo won the 2012 Presidential election on the basis of the resultant outcome, i.e if those votes were actually annulled. The Petitioners did not present their own collated figures to the Supreme Court to show that they won that election,” he explained.
Again, he averred that “unlike the Petitioners in the 2012/2013 case (Akufo-Addo & Bawumia), the petitioner in the present case, John Mahama is not asking the Supreme Court to annul votes and declare him President-elect on the basis of the resultant outcome. He is simply telling the court that per the figures contained in the declaration of the Chairperson of the EC and Returning Officer of the 2020 Presidential elections, Mr. Jean Adukwei Mensah, none of the 12 candidates in the 2020 Presidential elections attained more than 50% of the total valid votes cast as required by article 63(3) of the 1992 constitution, hence the declaration of candidate Akufo-Addo as President-elect is unconstitutional.”
On this basis, NDC National Communicator says “John Mahama doesn’t need his own collated figures to illustrate or prove his claim that Jean Mensah’s declaration is unconstitutional and invalid. Rather, he needs the figures contained in the declaration of Jean Mensah to illustrate and prove his case, which is precisely what he is doing in court.”
He emphasised that the collated figures of the NDC has nothing to with the petition; adding that the petition is only challenging the constitutionality and validity of the 2020 election Presidential results declared by madam Jean Mensah based on the figures contained in her declaration.
Member of NDC Election Petition Communication Team, Lawyer Sammy Gyamfi