Politics of Friday, 29 January 2021

Source: 3news.com

Petition: If you say no one won, prove same through your witnesses - Oppong Nkrumah

MP for Ofoase Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah MP for Ofoase Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah

A spokesperson for the President’s legal team in the ongoing election petition hearing, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has asked the petitioner, Mr John Dramani Mahama and his lawyers to prove through their witnesses that no candidate won the 2020 presidential elections.

Mr Mahama had told the Supreme Court that in his view, no candidate won the polls, therefore, the court should order the 1st Respondent, the Electoral Commission (EC) to rerun the polls.

Hearing of the case is expected to resume Friday, January 29.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah in a tweet said “This case is still simple. If you say no one won, prove same through your witnesses. It’s either 38k pink sheets, 275 constituency results or 16 regional sheets. Each route gives same results. @NAkufoAddo won with over 500k votes.”

Mr Mahama has, through one of his witnesses Johnson Asiedu Nketia told the court that there has never been any election in which the 1st Respondent, the Electoral Commission (EC) has admitted a catalogue of errors than in the 2020 presidential elections.

He picked the General Secretary of his party Mr Asiedu Nketia and Mr Michael Kpessah-Whyte to testify in the case.

Asiedu Nketia in his witness statement filed on Wednesday, January 27 said among other things that “In no previous Presidential Election in the Fourth Republic in Ghana has there been such a catalogue of admitted errors as in what happened after the 7th December 2020 Presidential elections.

“In all previous Presidential Elections, results collated at each constituency collation centre were transmitted directly by fax from 1st Respondent’s regional offices (without collation), to what is usually referred to as the ‘strongroom’ at its head office in Accra, and handed over to the representatives of the candidates, for them to scrutinize and then certify.

“In those previous Presidential Elections, when 1st Respondent declared the final results, they were based on the collated results from the constituencies which were duly certified by representatives of the candidates in the strong room.”