The Electoral Commissioner of Ghana Mrs. Jean Mensa and New Patriotic Party’s campaign manager Peter Mac Many have testified against former President John Dramani Mahama in his petition filed at the Supreme Court.
It is the case of the EC’s chair that the results of the 2020 elections held on December 7 were collated per the Public Elections Regulations, 2020 (C.I 127).
According to her, the testimony is based on her knowledge of the events leading to the filing of the petition and other matters that have come after.
Mrs. Mensa stated that Nana Akufo-Addo obtained 6,730,413 of the valid votes cast while John Mahama got 6,214,889.
Her testimony disclosed further that the total valid votes stood at 13,121,111.
The figures she explained shows that Mr. Akufo-Addo got more than 50% of the valid votes.
According to her, 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.
The EC chair admitted that she inadvertently announced 13,434,574 as the total valid votes instead of stating this figure as total number of votes cast.
However, the error had no effect on the declared results and a simple tabulation of all votes obtained by each candidate as declared comes to 13,121,111.
She avers that the form for the declaration was signed by 8 agents of the candidates who were present at the time of the completion of the form.
Testifying on the Techiman South results, Mrs. Mensa said the exclusion or inclusion from the votes obtained by the candidates does not change the outcome of the results.
She refuted the alleged vote padding as stated by former President John Dramani Mahama in his petition before the court.
Mr. Manu who has been appointed by the President to testify on his behalf in hi testimony stated that Mahama’s petition lacks merit and based on unfounded and misconceived assumptions.
In his testimony, he argues that the petition by the defeated candidate failed to disclose any attack on the validity of the election held throughout the 38,622 polling stations and 311 special voting centers.
The petitioner’s claim of wrong aggregation and vote padding he posited was “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.
“The Petition is largely conjectural and borne out of petitioner’s unfounded imagination”, he testified.
He added that the petition by Mr. Mahama is premised on the insignificant accuracies and slips made by the EC Chairperson in her declaration.
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 testified further.
Meanwhile, he has attached videos of some NDC leaders who before filing their petition, said they had won the election by more than 51% of votes casts.
However, Mr. Mahama in his petition has alleged that no candidate obtained the votes required to be declared winner hence his call for a run-off.
Mr. Mahama is however yet to file his witness statement as directed by the court.
He has since filed a stay of execution pending a hearing next week Tuesday.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com