General News of Thursday, 13 December 2012

Source: radioxyzonline

We are not ready for court - NPP

The New Patriotic Party says it is in no rush to go to court to challenge results of the elections which they claim was rigged in favour of John Mahama.

According to Nii Ayikoi Otoo, chairman of the NPP legal committee, the party is still gathering evidence and would go to the Supreme Court to challenge the results when the party is convinced that it has enough evidence.

Speaking in an interview with Citi News on Thursday, the former Attorney General stated that contrary to earlier reports that the party will go to court on Friday, the party would take its time to gather more evidence since it has a 21 day period to challenge the results.

The EC, on December 9, declared President John Mahama winner of the December 7 polls. He polled 5,574,761 votes, representing 50.70 per cent of the valid votes cast, to beat his closest challenger, Nana Akufo-Addo of the NPP, who obtained 5,248,898 votes, representing 47.74 per cent.

Since the declaration of the results, the NPP has insisted that the polls were rigged in favour of President Mahama and as a result asked its flag bearer not to concede defeat.

The NPP has however stated that it will respect the verdict of the Supreme Court no matter the outcome.

In a related development reports reaching XYZ News indicate that the NPP has assembled some top lawyers of the party to fight its case at the Supreme Court when it is finally ready to challenge the results of the December 7 results.

Some of the lawyers include Asante Bediatuo, Kwame Akufo, former Attorney General Joe Ghartey and Egbert Faigbille.