Election petition: Akufo-Addo, EC responses ‘misleading, disingenuous’ – Abraham Amaliba

Abraham Amaliba, a member of the legal team of the National Democratic Congress has described as ‘misleading and disingenuous’ the responses by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Electoral Commission to the election petition filed at the Supreme Court by John Dramani Mahama.

Amaliba told Citi News in an interview that the aversions made by EC and Akufo-Addo represent a deceitful way of analysing the pleas made by Mahama in his petition.

According to him, a decision on whether the NDC have legitimate grounds for the petition lies in the bosom of the Supreme Court.

“That is a disingenuous way of looking at the petition. The C.I. 135 gazetted the error-ridden declaration on the [9th of December]. Whether [the claims in the petition] are tenable or untenable, it is not for them to say. That is a decision for the Supreme Court,” he insisted.

“Our argument is that when you do the mathematics well, Nana Akufo-Addo has not crossed the 50 per cent mark and the declaration is unconstitutional,” Mr. Amaliba reiterated.

President Akufo-Addo in a 12-page response filed by his lawyers contended that the claims by John Mahama lack merit.

Describing the petition as incompetent, President Akufo-Addo said that John Mahama’s petition is filled with ‘complaints and empty allegations”.

The election petition does not disclose any attack on the validity of the election held throughout the 38,622 polling stations and 311 special voting centres or any of the processes set out in the paragraphs 3 and 4 (supra).

“In point of fact, Petitioner only devotes an overwhelming portion of the petition (30 out of 35 paragraphs) to weak and inconsistent complaints about the “declaration of the winner” of the election by 1st Respondent, and the remaining five(5) paragraphs to empty allegations of “wrong aggregation of votes” and “votes padding,” which collectively involve about 6,622 votes- an amount patently insignificant to materially affect the outcome of an election in which 2nd respondent defeated Petitioner by we’ll over 500,000 votes”.

The EC, in its response admitted to errors in the process but said they had no significant impact on the outcome of the polls.

“The full results of the December 7 presidential election was known to the petitioner and that the claims in the petition are contrived, have no legal basis and ought to be dismissed,” the EC argued.