NDC on “wild goose chase” over pink sheets - NPP

The main opposition New Patriotic Party says its 2012 Flagbearer and his two co-petitioners challenging the presidential results of last year need only have the Supreme Court nullify 1,500 polling station results to “oust” President John Mahama.

The Party, in a statement dated Sunday June 16, 2013 said its Presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on the obverse, needs results of 3,500 polling stations added to his declared results, to overturn President Mahama’s victory.

The party says it, therefore, wonders why the three respondents in the case are obsessed with media speculations and reports that the pink sheets tendered in evidence to support the case of rigging, are not up to the 11,842 insistently claimed by the petitioners in court.

Initial media reports indicated that the audited pink sheets hovered around 13, 900, but subsequent cross-checking with the pack of the Supreme Court Bench’s lot has brought the number down to about 9,800, a deficit of about 2000 sheets.

However, the NPP says: “Should the petitioners manage to annul results from just 1,500 polling stations, it would mean that John Mahama would not have secured the required 50%+1 of the votes needed for a first round win and, thus, a run-off would have to be held for the winner of the polls to be known”.

The statement noted that: “The category of irregularity with the lowest number of polling stations being challenged is the category of the ‘No presiding officer signature’ where the petitioners are praying the court to annul results from 1,739 polling stations”.

It says: “If the court upholds the argument of the petitioners and annuls only these 1,739 polling stations, that would see John Mahama tumbling down from the 50.7% declared for him by Dr. Afari-Gyan to 49.52% and about 300,000 votes down from securing the required 50%+1 votes needed for a first round victory”.

According to the Party, “…the over-voting category has 1,826 polling stations which the petitioners are praying the court to annul. Should the court uphold just these 1,826 polling stations and order an annulment, it would see John Mahama again tumbling down from the 50.7% declared for him by Dr Afari-Gyan to a meager 49.37% and about 350,000 votes down from securing the required 50%+1 votes for an outright win”.

It, therefore, observed that: “These numbers apparently show that the respondents are on a wild goose chase as all the petitioners need is something in the region of some 1,500 pink sheets to be annulled to get John Mahama’s declaration overturned and a run-off of the elections ordered”.

The Party also reminded the respondents that: “…When the petitioners filed the initial petition, they were relying on just about 4,000 pink sheets which if upheld would have still meant that Nana Akufo-Addo secured an outright first round victory of 50.3%. John Mahama’s declared vote share would have come down to 48.26% as a result of the annulments”.

“Indeed, the petitioners need even less than 4,000 pink sheets out of the current 11,138 they are relying on, to see Nana Akufo-Addo declared the winner”, the NPP stressed.

It further analysed that: “Without double counting, and should the court uphold the petitioners’ argument on just two categories – ‘over voting’ and ‘voting without biometric verification’, it would mean that 3,525 polling stations in all would have to be annulled”.

The statement further clarified that: “With these 3,525 polling stations, it would be more than enough to secure an outright declaration for Nana Akufo-Addo as the winner of the December polls”.

It added that: “The annulment of these 3,525 polling stations would mean that John Mahama’s vote share would be slashed down from the 50.7% declared for him to 48.06% while Nana Akufo-Addo’s vote share of the valid votes would soar from the 47.7% declared for him to 50.47%, which is more than the needed 50%+1 votes for a first round victory”.