The NPP’s Peter Mac Manu and EC Chairperson Jean Mensa have testified against 2020 NDC Presidential Candidate, John Dramani Mahama’s election petition.
Mr. Mahama is seeking to annul the results of the election won by the NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo and have a re-run of the polls.
On January 20, the Supreme Court announced January 26 as the date to commence hearing of the substantive aspect of the petition.
It also urged the parties in the case to file their respective witness statements.
EC’s witness statement
The EC statement covers 6 pages and is signed by Jean Mensa. She commences her testimony by stating that the information she’s putting across is from her own knowledge of events leading to the filing of the petition and other matters that have come after.
She states that the results of the 2020 elections held on December 7 were collated in accordance with Public Elections Regulations, 2020 (C.I 127).
She points out that Nana Akufo-Addo obtained 6,730,413 of the valid votes cast while John Mahama got 6,214,889.
She adds that the total valid votes stood at 13,121,111.
These figures she asserts shows that Mr. Akufo-Addo got more than 50% of the valid votes.
She additionally argues that whatever votes remained outstanding at the time of declaration could not mathematically change the more than 50% of valid votes obtained by Mr. Akufo-Addo.
She admits in her testimony that she inadvertently announced 13,434,574 as the total valid votes instead of stating this figure as total number of votes cast.
She insists that a simple tabulation of all votes obtained by each candidate as declared comes to 13,121,111. The form declaring the results, Mrs. Mensa says was signed by 8 agents of the candidates who were present at the time of the completion of the form.
Her inadvertence, she insists did not affect the constrictions threshold of 50% plus 1. The error she explains was immediately corrected the next day by the EC through a statement.
On the Techiman South constituency results which were outstanding at the time of declaration, Mrs. Mensa says it’s inclusion or exclusion from the votes obtained by the candidates does not change the outcome of the results.
She concludes her testimony by denying claims the Commission padded votes in favour of Nana Akufo-Addo.
Peter Mac Manu’s testimony
The NPP’s Peter Mac Manu commences his testimony by stating that Nana Akufo-Addo has appointed him to testify on his behalf.
He sets off the testimony by saying the petition is without merit and based on unfounded and misconceived assumptions.
He explains that the petition does not disclose any attack on the validity of the election held throughout the 38,622 polling stations and 311 special voting centers.
He describes the allegations of wrong aggregation of votes and vote padding as “empty and collectively involve about 6,622 votes- this is a sum patently insignificant to materially affect the outcome of an election which 2nd respondent defeated Petitioner by well over 500,000 votes.
He also states that Mr. Mahama does not disclose in the petition the number of valid votes he believes he actually obtained and what Mr. Mahama believes Nana Akufo-Addo got to merit a run off.
“The Petition is largely conjectural and borne out of petitioner’s unfounded imagination”, Mr. Manu adds.
The entire petition he argues is premised on the insignificant accuracies and slips made by the EC Chairperson in her declaration.
He insists further that the petition is a ruse and face-saving gimmick deployed by Mr. Mahama after the official results declared by the EC and election observers showed he had lost the polls despite claiming victory earlier.
He ends by pointing out that he has attached to his statement videos of NDC leaders who had claimed John Mahama won the election by more than 51% of votes casts.
He adds that the petition however states that no candidate obtained more than 50% of the votes including the candidate said to have won by more than 51%, that is John Mahama.
Source: myjoyonline,com
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