NDC to challenge results of December 7 polls – Mahama

Former President John Dramani Mahama, the Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) says the party will challenge the results of the December 7 Polls, certified and declared by the Electoral Commission (EC), in the Court of Law.

He said the results of the 2020 General Election, collated by its party from the pink sheets received by the party’s agents from the EC, indicated that his party won both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

The EC has declared that incumbent President Nana Akufo-Addo, who contested the election on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party, won with 6,730,587 votes, which represents 51.302 percent of the total valid votes cast.

Mr Mahama it said, also got 6,213,182 votes, representing 47.359 percent.

It put the total valid votes cast at 13,119,460.

It said the New Patriotic Party had so far won parliamentary 137 seats, with the NDC having 136 seats. The Fomena seat has been won by an independent candidate, while the winner of the Sene West contest was yet to be declared.

However, Mr Mahama stated at a press conference on Thursday night in Accra: “We are unable to accept the outcome of the election as declared by the EC Chairperson, Mrs Jean Mensa. Those results are flawed and discredited.”

He said in order not to leave any further infractions unaccounted for, the NDC would continue its meticulous audit of all presidential pink sheets 'to ensure that the verdict of the people was upheld'.

He said these steps 'would surely lead to their next line of action within the constraints of their democratic governance process'.

“We want to send a caution to the EC that in line with Regulation 47 of CI 127, they should ensure that election data is preserved for a year, after elections,” Mr Mahama said.

He claimed that the NDC won 140 seats, a working majority in Parliament.

“What has happened since was a deliberate attempt, targeting five of the 140 seats, to steal and, thus, subvert the people’s verdict. A closer look and detailed examination of the constituency specific facts cast very dark clouds on our democracy,” he stated.

Mr Mahama, therefore, said his Party will contest the results of some constituencies, including those of the Techiman South and Sene West.

He also alleged that the loss of three lives at the Techiman South Collation Centre was due to attempts by their opponent to subvert the will of the people.

He alleged that in the Eastern Region, the results in the Presidential Elections, which were collated and signed by all the parties, were not the same ones that were transmitted from the Region to the Commission offices in Accra, stating that the padded figures had since been exposed.

He said the Ashanti Region provided fundamental problems that required further investigation and an electoral audit, adding that evidence gathered across board showed that the aggregates on the summary sheets of some constituencies did not reflect the individual results on the polling station pink sheets.

“It may interest you to know that since the inception of the Fourth Republic, agents of the political parties represented in the collation room go through a settled procedure by which a declaration of final results are made,” he said.

“This involves the production of constituency by constituency results, which are then scrutinised by the agents and after their consent; the said results are then announced.

He said this time round, a different system was adopted, one in which bulk regional results were provided without supportive pink sheet data by which agents could validate the accuracy of the result.

“Consequently, not a single pink sheet from the constituencies supporting the bulk regional collation was provided. This is in direct violation of Regulations 3 and 44 of the Public Elections Regulations, 2020. (C.I. 127),” he said.

He said on account of this, the NDC was confident that what had happened was a violation of the law, a violation of due process and therefore tantamount to an illegality.

“To all NDC members and those who voted for us, I appeal to you not to be intimidated or cowed to submit to a dishonest process in the face of overwhelming evidence that supports the justness of our cause,” the former President said.

“Let me assure our teeming supporters and millions of Ghanaians who voted for this change, which has been stolen – the real stolen verdict – that we are beefing up capacity in the constituencies, where the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) is seeking to overturn our Parliamentary victories already chalked. We are deploying an additional crack teams of lawyers and senior Party officials to support them.

Meanwhile, the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) told a media briefing in Accra on Thursday that its independent collation of the Monday, December 7 results largely tallied with what the EC had declared.