Election 2020: 'Going to court not always the best, pink sheets not only evidence' – Kwesi Pratt

Veteran Journalist and Managing Editor of The Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, believes "pink sheets" are not the only form of evidence that a political party can adduce in court to back claims of an electoral fraud.

To him, even though pink sheets can be considered as ‘election bible', factual evidence in the form of visuals which show figures of the elections being tampered with to aid the incumbent, cannot also be discounted.

He was responding to calls by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to proceed to the legal arena instead of just making sentimental pronouncements and back claims that it (opposition party) won the majority of seats in parliament and the presidency in the December 7 polls with pink sheet evidence.

“I have heard so many people who’ve come up and say if you have any problem go and bring your pink sheets. I don’t think that is a correct attitude,” he opined.

Show us your pink sheets – NPP’s IT guru dares NDC

The IT Director of the NPP, Mr. Joe Anokye, earlier this week, threw a challenge to the biggest opposition party after claims by its Director of Elections, Mr. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah that the NDC has won 140 seats in parliament and projected its flagbearer, Mr. John Dramani Mahama as president-elect despite EC’s declaration.

Every dispute not about pink sheets

Kwesi Pratt, who was speaking on Wednesday's edition of Good Morning Ghana on Metro TV, said considering the contentious nature of the 2020 polls, an independent forensic audit of the election results will be a better option than pink sheets.

“Yes, pink sheets are important, yes pink sheets are considered as the bible of election declarations right from the polling stations to the collation centers, so pink sheets are important, but it is not everything that the pink sheet tells us and it is not every dispute that is about the pink sheets . . . "



“Here, we have a case where figures don’t add up, here we have a case where percentages don’t add up, so an independent audit of what the EC has declared even without pink sheet should be able to give us satisfaction,” he added.

Election figures questionable

Mr. Pratt also doubt figures declared by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commissioner that saw Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo winning the December 7, presidential polls.

“If you use the figures the EC presented, some mathematicians have come to the conclusion that now the percentage will now rise (beyond 100%),” he asserted.

Court can’t always resolve election disputes

According to the veteran journalist, the idea of political parties seeking legal redress in electoral disputes is ‘not always the best’.

“Yes, political parties may decide to go to court, but I submit, submit seriously that it is not only the court which can help us resolve the matter before us. Even auditing firms can help us to establish the true state of the results released by the EC,” he pontificated.