Election Petition: Judges were right, Mahama had no case - Gyimah-Boadi

Prof. Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, the co-Founder and Executive Director of Afrobarometer, has said that it is unsurprising that the Supreme Court verdict on the 2020 Election Petition brought to it by John Dramani Mahama was dismissed.

He said that the final verdict was an expected one, given that the case lacked merit, as outrightly suggested by the justices of the apex court during the reading of the judgment by Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah.

“I did not believe the NDC had a case right from the beginning so I am not surprised by the outcome,” he said on Citi TV’s Point of View.

But he explained that the failure of the justices of the court to allow the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa, to testify in the case and publicly accounting to Ghanaians, leaves Ghanaians with no clarity on the case.

“I was disappointed that the court failed to take advantage, to take the opportunity to interrogate the decisions and basis of those decisions by the EC and maybe help to put to rest some questions that other members of the public and observers may have had,” he told host of the show, Bernard Avle.

On Thursday, March 4, 2021, the Supreme Court delivered its final verdict on the election petition brought to it by John Dramani Mahama, stating that the case was without merit.

In their verdict, they said, among other things, that the petition was incompetent, lacked merit, and raised no reasonable cause of action because the petitioner failed to prove his case via his petition or through his witnesses.

What was Mahama seeking from the Supreme Court?

The petitioner, Mr Mahama, was seeking a rerun of the December 7, 2020 elections between himself and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) because he believes both leading candidates did not obtain 50 per cent of the valid votes as required.

His petition was based on the results declared by Jean Mensa, the Electoral Commission Chairperson on 9 December.

Mr Mahama was also seeking the following reliefs in his petition:

1. A declaration that EC Chair Jean Mensah’s declaration of the election results on December 9, 2020, was in breach of Article 63 (3) of the 1992 constitution.

2. That based on the data contained in the declaration, no candidate satisfied the requirement of the stated Article, to be declared President-elect.

3. A declaration that the declaration was unconstitutional, null and void, and of no effect whatsoever

4. An order annulling the Declaration of President-Elect Instrument 2020 (C.I. 135) dated 9th December 2020, issued under the hand of the EC Chair.

5. An order of injunction restraining Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo from holding himself out as President-elect;

6. An order of mandatory injunction directing the EC to conduct a re-run of the election with he (Mahama) and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as candidates.