Re-Run Of 2012 Polls Very Unlikely!

By Nana Akua Tweneboah-Koduah

The NPP have always treated with disdain any report from the London-based Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) on Ghana’s democracy and elections. The NPP have jumped and tore into shreds all the monthly reports from the EIU in the run-up to the 2012 elections because they pointed to NPP’s defeat in the polls.

Any report from the EIU has therefore become a fodder for the NPP to trample upon. As a matter of fact, when the EIU reported in its February 2013 edition that the Supreme Court petition case by Nana Akufo-Addo, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey will fall on the rocks, the NPP went ballistic. Commentators of NPP heaved insults upon insults on EIU by dousing the report and the credibility of EIU.

Would you therefore not be surprised if today you see the NPP hailing the latest report from the EIU which suggests that the Supreme Court (SC) petition hearing will certainly find some issues with the vote? The NPP who have condemned the EIU on their past reports, are now parading the June report of the EIU as the gospel truth and even claiming that there will be a re-run of the 2012 polls.

I do not recall that the NPP went to the SC to demand a re-run of elections in areas that they considered there were some voting irregularities. The NPP in fact sat down, did their own bogus calculations using some fictitious analysis by Dr Bawumia and went to the SC to demand that 4.6 million votes should be thrown away to pave the way for Nana Akufo-Addo to be crowned the President of Ghana.

In elections throughout the world, anytime there are some irregularities, those who cry foul have called for a re-run in only the areas they think there were problems. A perfect example just happened some few months ago in Kenya. There has never been a situation that one party has seized electoral materials and done their own phony calculations and demanded that a certain number of votes should be thrown away to make one person the president at all cost.

But that tune by the NPP seems to be abating. They have toned it down gradually because so many things are pointing towards their deception at the SC. Apart from the number of pink sheets they filed with their affidavits being short of what they claimed, they have also abandoned their initial claim that STL, an Israeli company located at Dzorwulu in Accra was involved in transmogrification of the 2012 election results in favour of the NDC.

The NPP is no longer talking about the so-called lies concerning their wildest claim that some results were padded in favour of President Mahama. This allegation is out from their charge sheet. The falsehood concerning the establishment of “30 ghost polling stations” is no longer being pursued by the NPP after they have been exposed that they sent their polling agents to those ghost polling stations.

The assertion regarding the cancelation of results in 7 polling stations did not fly when the NPP was exposed that President Mahama won in all those polling stations, and that if those results have not been cancelled President Mahama’s overall votes would have gone up.

Another charge sheet which has gone cold from the NPP quarters concerns the unsigned signatures of presiding officers after it was stated in court that about 99% of them signed the pink sheets. The allegation concerning the unsigned signatures by polling agents also has gone up in smoke after the Electoral Commission (EC) submitted that about 97% polling agents signed the pink sheets.

With all the so-called allegations by the NPP faltering, they have subtly started talking about the possible re-run of the 2012 elections. Very strangely the NPP is talking about the re-run of only the Presidential polls which they claim is tainted and leaving intact the Parliamentary election.

Many people have wondered why NDC supporters went to the polls to vote for their parliamentary candidates and “out of love” turned round to vote for Nana Akufo-Addo. From the 1992 elections held in Ghana, any party that has won majority seats in parliament goes on to win the presidency.

Therefore why is the NPP thinking that they won the presidential polls and lost the parliamentary elections? What was different in 2012? And the funniest part is that Akufo-Addo is claiming that he won by a whopping 40% margin in his wildest imagination.

I bet there won’t be a re-run of the Presidential polls. Assuming there is even going to be a re-run, is the SC going to order the EC to re-run the elections in areas that the NPP is contesting or the entire polling stations of 26,002?

And will the SC be fair if it orders a re-run in only the polling stations that President Mahama won? And if elections are re-run only in Mahama’s strongholds how is Akufo-Addo going to fare this time round?

Another issue that is yet to be settled concerns the EC. The NPP claims that the EC is manned by corrupt officials with the Electoral Commissioner, Dr Afari Gyan branded by the NPP as the poster boy for corruption.

That is the reason why the NPP have boycotted all the three by-elections so far held by the EC after the 2012 elections. Therefore, assuming that the SC orders a re-run, which organization will conduct the elections? Will it be the NPP or what?

It’s about time the NPP stop it’s day-dreaming and floatation of different scenarios to back their bogus case. Their backs are certainly on the wall and before we even factor in the audit report from the KPMG to deflate the hopes of the NPP, I am of the view that the NPP and to a large extent Nana Akufo-Addo are suffering from the denial syndrome, because they still cannot believe that it took President Mahama less than four months to win the election one touch. This is what they have been struggling to accept all this while.

nakuakoduah@yahoo.com