It�s Easier To Reverse Volta River Flow Than NPP Winning Election Petition

A deputy general secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress, Kofi Adams has ruled out any chances of success for the petition challenging the results of the 2012 presidential elections. He says there is no way the petitioners will be successful, liking the task ahead of them to the impracticability of reversing upstream, the course of the Volta River. Kofi Adams was contributing to discussions of a myriad of issues on Asempa FM on Thursday, including the ongoing election petition before the Supreme Court, saying the case of the petitioners now hinge on possibilities rather than actual events that happened in the 2012 polls. According to Kofi Adams, claims by critics of the New Patriotic Party that it was not democratic had been reinforced by the court action after the first petitioner, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who was also the party�s presidential candidate in the disputed polls, had declared publicly that every citizen�s right to vote could not be subjugated to other administrative processes. He wondered why the NPP were in court if they believed their own claim. The claim Kofi Adams referred to was made in Accra on December 28, 2012, at the Alisa Hotel where the petitioners announced the filing of the petition. �In emphasizing the importance of elections, it must be pointed out that the sanctity of the ballot is and must be supreme. In an election, we cast votes, then the votes are counted, the count is collated, the results are announced and formal declarations of results are made. In the entire process, we must never forget that it is the casting of the ballot that is sacred, the rest of the activities are at best, administrative duties. The count, the collation, the declaration of results cannot and should not be more important than the sacred, God-given right of a citizen casting his or her ballot. There is only one principle. Elections are about those who cast the vote, not those who count, not those who supervise, not those who transmit and not those who declare. The heart of the democratic process is about those who cast the vote,� Nana Addo had said. Click to read the full statement. But Kofi Adams said that after voters queued up in the hot sun to cast their votes, it was baffling that the petitioners are now asking the courts to annul the votes because a returning officer did not perform an administrative duty, ie sign the pink sheet when the voter had no supervisory role over the signing of the pink sheets. Again, he said the NPP made several allegations ahead of the polls, including fears that there would be power cuts, that some macho men would snatch ballot boxes and that party supporters should not abandon polling stations after voting to ensure the security of the ballot boxes. Since the polls however, he was yet to hear any of the fears materialised. He re-emphasised the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan�s claims that analysing the 2012 elections should be based on actualities and not possibilities, saying that pink sheets are sensitive documents only if they are used and not when blank. While he said he was not surprised that Dr. Wereko-Brobby was alleged to have written to apologise to Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, second petitioner and star witness of the petitioners after the former�s criticism of his performance in the witness box, Kofi Adams maintained that while Bawumia was the best witness for the petitioners, their case was simply bad hence their resort to quoting violations of training manual instructions, which he said was not the law.