vhe Petitioner in the 2020 Election Petition,Mr John Dramani Mahama says a run-off is needed since no candidate in the December 7 election procured 50% substantial votes as projected.
The instance of the Petitioner is just that, in addition to basic established infractions submitted by the Electoral Commission executive, who was the returning officer of the Presidential Election, the figures reported in the declaration she, at the end of the day, made on December 9, 2020, no candidate got more than 50% of the valid votes cast and, as a constitutional consequences , a run-off of presidential election would be required.
These were contained in the Former President John Dramani Mahama, the petitioner’s closing address documented by his legal counselors at the Supreme Court.
Mr Mahama contended that the proof from the particulars of the assertion and the thought that the EC Chairperson said was the premise of the announcement she was making, prompted the end that “Nana must be credited with 49.625 percent of the votes at that point.”
Mr Mahama said, “The way that Petitioner isn’t showing in this Petition what he or the other candidates ought to have gotten contrasted with numbers announced by the EC, can’t prompt an end that the declaration by the EC Boss is constitutional .”
As per Mr Mahama, his own figures are “not applicable to deciding if that guarantee is very much constitutional or not.”
Mr Mahama invited the court to take legal notification of the way that, ahead of the December 7, 2020 elections , political parties were asked not to try to report results dependent on figures they had ordered however to sit tight for the official declaration of the EC Boss as the returning officer for the Presidential Election.
He clarified that the EC under arrangements of Articles 43-54, 56 (7), 63 and 65 of the Constitution and CI 127 is accused of the lead of the Elections.
Mr Mahama said “the obviously unsound nature of the case that the applicant ought to have put towards his own figures is placed in sharp relief when it is reviewed that, by uprightness of Article 64 (1) of the Constitution, any citizen of Ghana can present a petition testing the legitimacy of the election of the president.
A citizen , in bringing such a test, would not be needed to show the specific number of votes that applicants should have gotten. Being a candidate doesn’t change the capability for bringing such a Petition and can’t need more than some other citizen .”
He reviewed that “Nobody is asking Nana Addo either to bring his figures or the number of votes he and other candidates got, nor has Nana advanced his figures in this appeal as that would have no significance in the court under the watchful eye of the court.”
Appropriately, the Petitioner discharged the weight of proof that was on him.
The Petitioner affirms that “the unsigned press articulation was not just adjusting the supposed wrong all out valid votes cast figures reported by Mrs Jean Mensa in her declaration on December 9, 2020.
It likewise went on, reasonably, to change the votes got by competitors Mahama and Akuffo-Addo as proclaimed for them on December 9, 2020. Votes of other candidates were likewise changed.”
This, the Petitioner said was done outside the framework given by CI 127 and especially, without the involvement of the agents of the candidate , in spite of the prerequisite of Articles 49 (2) and (3) of the Constitution and Regulation 44 (10) of CI127.
“Passage 29-30 of the corrected Petition are sure about how the Press Release gave on December 10, 2020, intensifies the absence of straightforwardness, reasonableness and realism of the first Respondent (EC) in the steadily evolving figures,” the Petitioner said.
The Petitioner said the figure in the indicated “remedy” concerning the complete valid votes cast was itself changed by the main Respondent (EC) when the response to the Petition was documented on January 9, 2021.
“It made no sense that the first respondent (EC) gave a “adjustment” on tenth December 2020 to a figure which is presently professed to have been the real figure indicated on Form 13 on December 9, 2020.”
Mr Mahama said “amidst changing figures of complete substantial votes cast just as votes of individual candidates , it basically can’t be said that the general results on Form 13 were not influenced, particularly when the figures professed to have been structure 13 are unique in relation to figures in the “rectification” on December 10 2020.”
He battled that there were errors in figures given to candidates of different gatherings and “the material increment of Akuffo-Addo whiles simultaneously physically reducing the votes of the Petitioner obviously requires clarification.”
Mr Mahama said generally, there was no proof from the EC based on which any of its conflicting cases could be acknowledged as “reality.”
Candidate held that endeavor to “impact a revision by an unsigned official statement is entirely indefensible.”
As indicated by the Petitioner, the declaration of the three observers for the Petitioner showed plainly not just the break of the obligation to be reasonable and genuine under Article 23 of the Constitution yet additionally the absence of fair treatment as far as Article 296 of the Constitution is concerned .
Candidate presented that when matters of breaks of the Constitution or of Statute emerged under the steady gaze of a court there was a direness about tending to those penetrates.
Mr Mahama said the direct of the EC Chairperson in sending the agents of a significant candidate who ought to have been available in the goal of the exceptional issues prompting the statement and “quickly going on to make the assertion without even the necessary strides under the Regulation 44(10) were self-clearly nonsensical.”
