Election Petition: Interrogatories are very relevant, SC must allow Jean Mensah to answer them

The timelines the interrogatories are seeking will expose the extent of lack of credibility of Jean Mensa and the election results she declared.

If Jean Mensa inadvertently called the total number of votes cast as the total number of valid votes cast as she wants the world to believe, did she also inadvertently call the wrong percentages?

After a press release informing the general public that the results declared were incorrect, Jean Mensah went ahead to gazette the same results she claimed were wrong and expect the candidates and the public to believe her. This is an insult and show of gross disrespect to the candidates and the general public.

It is worth noting also that the Electoral Commission’s response to the election petition contains a different set of figures and percentages as the election results. This new set of results was put together without the involvement of representatives of the presidential candidates who took part in the election. It is baffling, surprising and bizarre that Mr Akufo Addo’s legal team is not concerned about the credibility of the declared election results at all. All that the NPP communicators do is unrelenting condemnation of the petitioner who is seeking to remove doubts about the declared election results.

The election petition cannot be resolved satisfactorily without the recollation of the election results from all the polling stations and verifying the total number of votes cast against the records of the biometric verification machines.

This is the approach I expect the Supreme Court to adopt to achieve a speedy and acceptable resolution of the petition. The case management conference should have been used to put in place an independent committee with representatives of the parties in the election petition as polling agents which should have been doing the recollation by now.

This will also resolve the issue of wide gap of disparities between total number of votes cast in the presidential and parliamentary elections. The wide gaps between the total numbers of votes cast in the two elections do not make sense and need to be looked into as well.

My appeal to the Supreme Court is that this is a test case which if handled very well will prove to the Electoral Commission, political parties, independent candidates and the general public that if they steal an election or engage in electoral fraud they will be caught and dealt with appropriately. This will end the violence and deaths that are associated with our elections. If a thief knows that s/he will be caught, punished and not benefit from the loot, s/he will not set out to steal.

Experience is the best teacher. The Supreme Court must show the way and help put an end to election fraud in the country.

Andrew Amenyo.