NPP's Much [Akufo] Ado About Nothing!

Feature Article, by Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.

I was shaking my head in complete bewilderment after watching the press conference held by the NPP on the filing of the , a petition “at the Registry of the Supreme Court, challenging the validity of the result of the presidential election as declared by the Electoral Commission, through its Chairman, on December 9th, 2012. ”

There were issues such as whether or not the Supreme Court can replace the role of the Electoral Commissioner and declare a different result as being sought by the NPP, or at best would ask for a run-off, or at best reject the NPP request for want of evidence. The issue of the want of evidence was so blatant during the presentation of the Vice-Presidential candidate in the last election, Mahamudu Bawumia that made me heave a huge sigh of relief, after hearing him.

I was wondering whether commenting on their press conference would be tantamount to a contempt of court, because in the case, the NPP is itself in contempt for addressing the press and not the courts. This comment is therefore not a comment on the case before the courts, but on the presentation of that case by the NPP to the public.

We need to publicly digest what we are being told at press conferences, otherwise, there is something wrong with our democracy! Miraculously, just as I was about to compose my thoughts, I got a mail from a comrade that shared the thoughts of Professor J. Atsu Amegashie on this matter. It was so good and even better put than I could possibly have done in the long run, as I surely would not have gone that far in my analysis!

It is worth sharing the entire piece unedited:

Folks,

The NPP has presented its case. I agree that there were irregularities in the 2012 presidential elections. I don't think that, based on the evidence presented by Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, one can conclude that:

“Adjusting the EC announced results to take account of these illegally counted votes will mean that Nana Akufo-Addo should have been declared president. This is the heart of our case to the Supreme Court.”

Perhaps, the NPP has more.

Some specific comments:

1.“The EC reported total registered voters for the parliamentary election as 14,031,642 and 14,158,890 for the presidential election, a difference of 127,248.”

A good point, NPP. Over to you, EC.

2.“The irregularities led to 1,340,018 votes being wrongly counted as part of the result of the 2012 presidential election. These votes were largely to the benefit of the NDC presidential candidate.”

The operative word is “largely”. It means “great extent; on the whole; mostly.” This suggests that Nana Addo was a beneficiary of electoral fraud, even if not most of the fraud?

3. The 1,340,018 illegal votes above were obtained by summing votes in the following categories:

(a) OVER VOTE DUE TO TOTAL VOTE EXCEEDING BALLOT PAPERS ISSUED TO VOTERS

(b) VOTING WITHOUT BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION

(c) SAME SERIAL NUMBERS FOR DIFFERENT POLLING STATIONS

(d) MISSING PRESIDING OFFICER'S SIGNATURE ON REDSHEET

(e)WORDS AND FIGURES DO NOT MATCH

4. Since a person’s vote is not publicly known, there is no way of knowing that those who voted without biometric verification voted for John Mahama nor does the total votes cast exceeding the ballot papers issued establish this fact. In fact, none of the claims in the categories above is proof that John Mahama was the beneficiary of the alleged illegal votes. These are allegations about the total number of illegal votes not the distribution of these votes. So how was the NPP able to establish that “The irregularities led to 1,340,018 votes being wrongly counted as part of the result of the 2012 presidential election. These votes were largely to the benefit of the NDC presidential candidate.”?

(5) The pink sheet with serial number 0017717 (i.e., Temp Booth Sangbam pooling station) is an example of the NPP’s evidence of “OVER VOTE DUE TO TOTAL VOTE EXCEEDING BALLOT PAPERS ISSUED TO VOTERS”. The NPP claims there were 620,443 votes in this category.

But note the following on that sheet:

What is the number of ballots issued to voters on the polling station register? = 277 (C1)

Total Votes in ballot box = 291

Based on this, the NPP concluded that there was electoral malpractice at this polling station since 291 > 277. But a careful look at the sheet reveals that the 291 figure was obtained by summing the total valid votes (277) and total rejected votes (14). See the last three rows. In fact, the response to the question “what is the number of ballots issued to this polling station” (A1) is 375 > 291. This need not be the same as the number of ballots issued to voters on the polling station register (C1). At C4, the total number of SPOILT ballots is 14. I think the form was filled by an officer who was not well trained or simply misunderstood the question. S/he should have entered a numbered which was, at least, equal to the 291 in response to the question: What is the number of ballots issued to voters on the polling station register? (C1). Am I missing something? In any case, one can understand how the figure 291 was computed.

Note that the sum of the votes for all the presidential candidates, 277, is equal to the recorded number of valid votes, 277. So electoral irregularity, if any, does not necessarily imply electoral fraud. Some of the EC’s officials may have been incompetent. I believe that some of them were corrupt. But I am not sure, based on the evidence presented by Dr. Bawumia, that the NPP has proven that Nana Addo won the election. I suspect that NPP has more?

(6) On the issue of “SAME SERIAL NUMBERS FOR DIFFERENT POLLING STATIONS”, I think the EC should do a better job next time. But I won’t read too much into it if (a) the names of the polling stations are different, (b) these polling stations indeed exist, and (c) the NPP officials at these polling stations were satisfied with the information recorded on the pink sheets for these polling stations.

The NPP did not state that the three conditions above were violated.

(7) On “Words and figures mismatch”, what is important is to establish which of these pieces of information (words or figures) reflected the will of the people and which one was recorded for the various candidates. The variance between figures and words is not proof of electoral fraud in favor of any candidate.

(8) According to Bawumia “Some 24,000 Pink Sheets have been analyzed so far”

The NPP must present evidence from all 26,002 polling stations. Making claims based on 24,000 stations is only valid if (a) oneassumes that John Mahama was also the net beneficiary of fraud in the other 2002 polling stations, and/or (b) the total number of votes cast or the registered number of voters in the 2002 polling will not change the NPP’s conclusion even if all the votes were in Mahama’s favor.

Of course, point (a) is not defensible in a court of law. Point (b) has not been proven.

(9) The NPP did not mention a single constituency in which the total number of votes obtained by Mahama as published by the EC (the pdf document) exceeded the corresponding number obtained based on its independent collation of the figures. No claims of inflated votes for Mahama in the following constituencies: Ledzokuku, Savelugu,Tamale South, Lower Manya Krobo, Techiman North, Yilo, Kintampo South, etc and many other claims made on Dec 9, 2012.

To conclude the NPP appears to have established a pattern of electoral incompetence, acts of negligence, and irregularities. It does not necessarily follow that these acts of omission or negligence are tantamount to electoral fraud and, in particular, electoral fraud in favor of John Mahama. Surely, the Supreme Court will require more than this.

Let’s wait for proceedings in the Supreme Court of our dear nation.

In the service of Ghana.

Ignore typos.

Atsu

They seem to be claiming one thing whilst their so-called “evidence” appears to be looking in a different direction. There is nothing that the NPP presented that even remotely pretended to support their wild claims that Nana Akufo-Addo was the winner! It is much [Akufo?] ado about nothing!

Forward Ever! Backward Never! For Life, the Environment, and Social Justice! Nana Akyea Mensah,