Election 2020: Mahama explains why he is not ready to concede to Akufo-Addo

John Dramani Mahama, the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has explained he is not ready to concede defeat in the just-ended December 7 elections because of the over six million Ghanaian voters who voted for him on election day.

According to him, this will also help him uphold Ghana’s democracy as well as hold the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Akufo-Addo led government to a higher standard in terms of Ghana’s democracy.

“In the interest of the more than six million people who voted for me, I must uphold our democracy and hold our Electoral Commission to higher standards and hold this government to higher standards in terms of democracy [...] the way they’ve conducted this election; the government [President Akufo-Addo] and the Electoral Commission is a dent to our democratic credentials...” Mahama told VOA’s Peter Clottey in an interview.

He indicated that, as a democrat, it will not be right to sweep the issues that have been raised in the just-ended elections under the carpet and leave it as it is without learning any lessons.

“In my principles as a democrat, I can’t be seen to be sweeping it under the carpet and just letting it go. I think that we must bring closure to this by seeing exactly where the issues are. If an independent audit is done by the EC; they bring somebody crunch the numbers, do an independent audit; if I lost why not [...] I’ll be the first to concede and walk away.

“But as long as that is not done, and I know that there is a deliberate attempt to subvert the will of the people in favour of the incumbent, it will be wrong for me in terms of our democratic practise to just leave it because we’ll not learn the lessons of this election. I think that we must learn the lessons of this election so that we don’t repeat it in the future one,” Mahama noted.

John Dramani Mahama lost to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the Monday, December 7, 2020, general elections for the second time after the 2016 general elections.

The EC within 48 hours of voting on Wednesday, December 9, 2020, declared the incumbent President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as the president-elect of Ghana. The NPP’s flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo polled 51% of votes to beat the NDC flagbearer John Dramani Mahama who polled 47% of votes according to the EC.

After the declaration of the December 7 election results, the opposition NDC alleged that the Electoral Commission (EC) liaised with the incumbent NPP to overturn the results.

John Dramani Mahama, who led the NDC into the 2020 elections, at a press conference after the EC declared President Akufo-Addo winner of the presidential race, described the elections as ‘flawed and fictionalised.’

Mahama averred that data available to his party from across all the 16 regions of Ghana showed that he had won the 2020 presidential election insisting that any other pronouncement by the EC was evidence of manipulation of figures.

He, therefore, rejected the outcome of the presidential election.

The EC has, however, on Thursday issued a statement admitting an error in the declared results.

The EC stated in its statement that, the Chairperson “inadvertently used 13,433,573 as the total valid votes cast”.

“The total valid votes cast is 13,119,460. This does not change the percentages stated for each candidate and the declaration made by the Chairperson,” the EC said in the statement issued Thursday, December 10, 2020.