For the first time, former President John Dramani Mahama has opened up about why he and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) could not provide the needed evidence to make their case in the 2020 election petition. On December 30, 2022, the former president dragged the Electoral Commission led by Jean Mensa (1st Respondent) and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (2nd Respondent) to the apex court over the 2020 presidential elections on an allegation that the results announced by the EC were not the accurate results. The petition details "serious violations of the 1992 Constitution by the Electoral Commission and its Chairperson and Returning Officer for the Presidential Election, Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa in the conduct of their constitutional and legal responsibility." The petitioner sought, among others, a declaration from the Supreme Court to the effect that "the purported declaration of the results of the 2020 Presidential Election on December 9 2020, is unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect whatsoever." But the seven-member panel of the Supreme Court on March 4, 2021, held that the petition filed by former President John Dramani Mahama was unmeritorious and unanimously dismissed all other applications moved by the petitioner, including two reviews. Speaking in a VOA interview monitored by GhanaWeb, John Dramani Mahama intimated that NDC could not make its case because the pink sheets used by the EC to record the election results did not make room for the people to be verified before they could vote. "In the last elections, a lot of things went wrong. On the pink sheets that we record the results, they did not make allowance for the number of people biometrically registered. "And that is why when we went to court, and they said, why don't you bring your pink sheet? It would have been useless because you bring the pink sheet, and there is no recording of the number of people verified. "It is only when you have that recording which must match up with the number of ballots in the box (that you can make a case). And so, if the Electoral Commission gives you a form that does not make provision for the people verified then what is the need for us to put our figures in the verification machine," he said. The former president further stated that most of the challenges in the 2020 elections have still not been resolved. He added that the NDC has taken a cue from what happened in the 2020 election and has decided to go into the next election with its "own referrer". Watch the former president remarks below (from 1:30):
For the first time, former President John Dramani Mahama has opened up about why he and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) could not provide the needed evidence to make their case in the 2020 election petition. On December 30, 2022, the former president dragged the Electoral Commission led by Jean Mensa (1st Respondent) and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (2nd Respondent) to the apex court over the 2020 presidential elections on an allegation that the results announced by the EC were not the accurate results. The petition details "serious violations of the 1992 Constitution by the Electoral Commission and its Chairperson and Returning Officer for the Presidential Election, Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa in the conduct of their constitutional and legal responsibility." The petitioner sought, among others, a declaration from the Supreme Court to the effect that "the purported declaration of the results of the 2020 Presidential Election on December 9 2020, is unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect whatsoever." But the seven-member panel of the Supreme Court on March 4, 2021, held that the petition filed by former President John Dramani Mahama was unmeritorious and unanimously dismissed all other applications moved by the petitioner, including two reviews. Speaking in a VOA interview monitored by GhanaWeb, John Dramani Mahama intimated that NDC could not make its case because the pink sheets used by the EC to record the election results did not make room for the people to be verified before they could vote. "In the last elections, a lot of things went wrong. On the pink sheets that we record the results, they did not make allowance for the number of people biometrically registered. "And that is why when we went to court, and they said, why don't you bring your pink sheet? It would have been useless because you bring the pink sheet, and there is no recording of the number of people verified. "It is only when you have that recording which must match up with the number of ballots in the box (that you can make a case). And so, if the Electoral Commission gives you a form that does not make provision for the people verified then what is the need for us to put our figures in the verification machine," he said. The former president further stated that most of the challenges in the 2020 elections have still not been resolved. He added that the NDC has taken a cue from what happened in the 2020 election and has decided to go into the next election with its "own referrer". Watch the former president remarks below (from 1:30):
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