General News of Thursday, 14 January 2021

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

No fresh election will come from Mahama’s petition – Lawyer Kwame Gyan

Flagbearer for the National Democratic Congress, John Mahama Flagbearer for the National Democratic Congress, John Mahama

John Dramani Mahama’s request to have a re-run of the 2020 election will not be granted by the Supreme Court, Lawyer Kwame Gyan, a private legal practitioner has said.

According to him, the chances of a fresh election being held as a result of Mahama’s petition is very slim.

Drawing lessons from the 2012 election, Kwame Gyan explained that the Supreme Court judges in their ruling made it clear, that elections are won at the polling stations and that elections are about vigilance.

In that case, if the agents of a specific party fail to discharge their duties and run to the Supreme Court for redress, it becomes a case of impossibility.

“The 2012 election petition was a landmark one and I tell you that it is still the position that elections are about vigilance. Elections walk with equity and equity helps the vigilance not the indolence. Elections are about vigilance so if you sleep on your job and come to the Supreme Court for redress after the person has been sworn in, it will be difficult”, he said on Angel FM.

“When I handle people’s land cases I tell them never to allow the other party sack them from the land. I tell them to protect the land. If the person dislodges you, you won’t come back. I don’t see any election coming out of this petition. No new election will come out because the international observers even endorsed it but had issues with the collation which they said was not transparent”.

Lawyer Kwame Gyan also said that the petition by Mahama is purely arithmetic and that he failed to mention the violation of any law in his petition.

He noted that Mahama’s petition, unlike the 2012 petition by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is silent on specific electoral laws which was breached.

“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.