(Part I)
By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
Thursday, August 22, 2013
My good friends, it is exactly one week to Judgement Day when the Supreme Court will announce its verdict regarding the petition that Akufo-Addo, Dr. Bawumiah, and Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey filed against President Mahama and the Electoral Commission on the outcome of the Presidential Elections on December 7 and 8, 2012.
From now till that moment, I will articulate my convictions and explain them to justify why I am persuaded that the NPP petitioners will lose the case. I don’t intend to hijack the assignment from the 9 Supreme Court judges, but I want to articulate my viewpoints for discussion in readiness for the moment.
Ours is to share ideas and enlighten each other so that we won’t be misled by anybody. All this talk of peace must be reinforced with cogent analysis of issues to clear any fog in people’s minds.
My goal is to unpack the issues and to suggest that anybody who rejects the Supreme Court’s verdict and resorts to hooliganism and riotous acts to destabilize the state should be given the stiffest punishment ever imaginable.
So, here is my conviction: Having analyzed the petition and scrutinized proceedings at the Supreme Court, I am convinced that President Mahama will be retained in office.
Why am I so convinced?
1. The general elections were not characterized by any act that undermined voting, counting and certification of votes and declaration of winners at each polling station. No polling agent of any political party lodged any formal report in protest against any fraud at any polling station.
2. The votes were counted, certified, and announced in the open at each polling station for the public to know who won or lost and the quantum of votes. The general public vigilantly participated in everything and knew the results at each polling station long before the clerical work concerning pink sheets was done.
3. The results announced at each polling station were forwarded through the appropriate channels to the Electoral Commission headquarters, where each political party or independent Presidential candidate had agents monitoring events. The agents appended their signatures to the official declaration of the results by Dr. Afari Gyan. None protested at the outcome of Election 2012.
4. Elections were monitored by local and foreign observers whose conclusion put it as free, fair, transparent, and an emulable example for other African countries.
5. The petitioners’ recourse to pink sheets to fight their case is in bad faith as the exhibits themselves proved during proceedings—inconsistencies, anomalies, miscategorizations, duplications, inglorious skewing of pink sheets to exclude the NPP’s strongholds, and many more. In effect, the main substance with which the petitioners fought their case is doubtful in form, nature, scope, content, and volume, not to mention value.
6. No direct evidence was adduced by the petitioners at any polling station to prove that malpractices or irregularities occurred during and after voting to warrant their challenging the results.
Many more reasons; but I will settle on these to begin the series on Countdown to Judgement Day.
I expect the Supreme Court to concentrate attention on what actually happened at the polls and not the administrative or document handling aspect. The voting that took place yielded results that were announced in the open. Why should anybody turn to pink sheets to contest that outcome as if the pink sheets matter more than the actual votes that were cast, collected/collated, counted, and declared in the open as the primary material on which the fate of the candidates was determined at Election 2012.
In subsequent parts of the series, I will raise other perspectives. Friends, what are your own convictions?
I shall return…
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