General News of Thursday, 14 January 2021

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Mahama’s election petition purely arithmetic – Lawyer

Kwame Gyan is a private legal practitioner Kwame Gyan is a private legal practitioner

Kwame Gyan, a private legal practitioner has offered that John Dramani Mahama failed to cite a violation of any of the electoral laws in his petition to the Supreme Court.

According to Kwame Gyan, the petition by the NDC flagbearer was centred on mathematical errors which he reckons were committed by the Electoral Commission in the computation of the results from the various polling station.

He said that unlike the 2012 election petition where the NPP highlighted specific breaches, the 2020 election petition is devoid of same.

He noted that John Mahama’s petition is a simple issue that will be resolved with ease by the Supreme Court justices.

“I have read the petition and I remember the 2012 petition. This one is not really complicated. In the NPP petition for 2012, they set out infractions and over-voting and voting without biometric. They listed different infractions and backed it with law.

“This petition is purely arithmetic. It’s like adding numbers. It is not law but arithmetic. The NPP petition was about whether specific electoral laws have been violated but this one is about whether someone has made basic arithmetic errors. One is law and the other is mathematics” he said on Angel FM.

John Dramani Mahama is praying the Supreme Court to quash the declaration by Jean Mensa, the Returning Officer of the Presidential Elections which mentioned Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as winner of the December election.

Mahama, in his petition prayed the court to order a re-run of the election as neither him nor Akufo-Addo acquired percentage required by the law.

The hearing of the petition commences today, January, 14, 2020.