Supreme Court Resumes Election Petition Hearing Today

The Supreme Court hearing the ongoing election petition will resume today, Monday, June 24, 2013 after taking a ten-day break. The break was necessitated after international auditing firm; KPMG prayed the court to grant it a week and some days to complete the auditing of pink sheets. As a result, the Supreme Court on Thursday, June 13, 2013, adjourned proceedings to today to enable the auditing firm complete its work to allow the parties to rely on the report to make their case for and against the annulment of more than four million votes. The Statement of Poll and Declaration of Results forms, also known as pink sheets, have been at the heart of the election petition challenging the declaration of President John Dramani Mahama as the winner of the 2012 Presidential election. The presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo; his running mate, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, and the Chairman of the NPP, Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey have alleged that gross and widespread irregularities took place on the face of the pink sheets from 11,842 polling stations. Although they insist they supplied 11,842 pink sheets to prove claims of over-voting, persons voting without undergoing biometric verification, some presiding officers not signing the pink sheets and some polling stations having the same serial numbers, the respondents allege that they were not supplied with 11,842 pink sheets. The petitioners are currently relying on 11,115 pink sheets to make their case for the annulment of more than four million votes. Realising the controversy surrounding the actual number of pink sheets supplied to the Supreme Court Registry would not die down, the court, on May 9, 2013, appointed KPMG to audit the pink sheets. The hearing of the substantive petition began on April 17, 2013. So far, Dr Bawumia and the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, have testified for the petitioners and President Mahama, as well as the NDC, respectively. The Chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, began giving his evidence-in-chief on Thursday, May 30, 2013 and is currently being cross-examined by Mr Philip Addison, the lead counsel for the petitioners.