Election Petition: Mahama presses EC to admit to errors made in the declaration
Congress has amended his petition before the Supreme Court by further coaxing the Electoral Commission to admit to the errors its Chairperson made during her 9 December 2020 declaration of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as President-elect.
On Thursday, January 14, 2021, when the case was first heard, the Supreme Court granted leave to counsel for the petitioner up to 4 pm that same day to amend the petition.
The respondents were given up to close of business on Friday to file any amended responses if they so desired.
Consequently, the next hearing was scheduled for Tuesday 19 January.
However, GhanaWeb has sighted a document in which Mahama through his attorney Tony Lithur, is pressing the EC to admit: “That when the percentages of the valid votes cast and standing to the names of each of the Presidential Candidates as announced by Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, the Chairperson of 1st Respondent on December 9, 2020, are summed up, they would yield a total of 100.3%.”
The amended petition asked the EC to admit further: “That Mrs. Jean Mensa, Chairperson of 1st Respondent, in her purported declaration on December 9, 2020, stated that the results from Techiman South Constituency were not yet available.
Also, the amended petition asked the EC to admit further: “That Mrs. Jean Mensa, Chairperson of 1st Respondent, in her purported declaration on December 9, 2020, stated that even if the 128,018 votes of Techiman South Constituency were added to the votes standing to the name of [the] petitioner, that would not change the results.”
In that expected amendment submitted on Thursday 14 January, Mahama was expected to only amend the typographical error of labelling the “1st Respondent”, namely the Electoral Commission (EC) as “2nd Respondent”, being Nana Akufo-Addo and vice versa, a reason the justices withdrew into chambers and returned with a ruling granting the motion to amend, despite opposition from Akoto Ampaw, counsel for Akufo-Addo.
In the initial response by the first respondent, namely the EC, there was an admission that “computational and mathematical errors” were made but that those errors did not “materially affect” the results.
Mahama’s attorneys are apparently cashing in on this to coax the EC into further admissions under oath by rehashing and emphasising some key paragraphs in the original petition.
This will then more likely make it easier for the petitioner to convince the supreme court that the errors resulted in unfairness and must be corrected.
Mahama, who is contesting the election results of December 9, 2020, stated in the motion that, the Chairperson of the 1st Respondent “refused to accept a letter (Exhibit B) written by the NDC to her in which the NDC, through its authorised and accredited agents, raised concerns and notified her of material errors in her collation of the results of the 7th December 2020 Presidential Election”.
Mahama argues, “That a purported “correction” of figures in the declaration made by Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, the Chairperson of 1st Respondent, was by virtue of an unsigned Press Release of 1st Respondent on 10th December 2020.
Further, “That the purported ‘correction’ issued in an unsigned Press Release of 1st Respondent on 10th December 2020, stated that the total valid votes cast was now 13,119,460”.
Again, “That the purported ‘correction’ on 10th December 2020 changed the number of votes claimed to have been obtained by the other presidential candidates in the purported declaration of December 9, 2020”.