How do you expect NDC to collate ‘credible’ results from error-ridden pink sheets? – Sammy Gyamfi asks

National Communication Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Sammy Gyamfi has reacted to criticisms that the NDC failed to collate presidential results after the 2020 General Elections, wondering how the party could have collated any proper and true results from pink sheets and summary sheets that contain errors.

“If I may ask, how can anyone expect the NDC to do any true and proper collation of results on the basis of polling station pink sheets and constituency summary results sheets that contain several patent arithmetic errors and arrive at any accurate outcome? I don’t get it!” He wrote on social media.

Mr Gyamfi argued that the request for the NDC’s own results is not justified because the NDC is in the Supreme Court to challenge the declaration by the Electoral Commission and not to present its version of collated results to the Court.

Read full statement below:

On the matter of the demand for the NDC to present its own collated results of the 2020 Presidential Elections;

For the records, candidate Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia did not present their own collated figures or results to the Supreme Court in the 2012/2013 election petition.

I dare anybody who disputes this fact to point me to any paragraph in the 2012 election Petition where the petitioners presented their own collated figures to the Supreme Court to show that they won the 2012 presidential election.

In that case, the petitioners presented the EC’s own declared figures to the court and asked the court to annul about 4 million votes on grounds that those votes had been affected by alleged legal infractions and irregularities.

The petitioners then proceeded to deduct those votes from the results/figures declared by the EC and sought a declaration from the court that candidate Akufo-Addo won the 2012 Presidential election on the basis of the resultant outcome, i.e if those votes were actually annulled. The Petitioners did not present their own collated figures to the Supreme Court to show that they won that election.

Unlike the Petitioners in the 2012/2013 case (Akufo-Addo & Bawumia), the petitioner in the present case, John Mahama is not asking the Supreme Court to annul votes and declare him President-elect on the basis of the resultant outcome. He is simply telling the court that per the figures contained in the declaration of the Chairperson of the EC and Returning Officer of the 2020 Presidential elections, Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensah, none of the 12 candidates in the 2020 Presidential elections attained more than 50% of the total valid votes cast as required by article 63(3) of the 1992 constitution, hence the declaration of candidate Akufo-Addo as President-elect is unconstitutional.

Therefore to my mind, John Mahama doesn’t need his own collated figures to illustrate or prove his claim that Jean Mensah’s declaration is unconstitutional and invalid. Rather, he needs the figures contained in the declaration of Jean Mensah to illustrate and prove his case, which is precisely what he is doing in court.

Why then is he being asked to present his own collated figures to the Supreme Court, before he can challenge the constitutionality/validity of the 2020 Presidential results declared by Jean Mensah as per Jean Mensah’s own figures? Particularly, when his own collated figures has got nothing to do with his petition, which is only a challenge of the constitutionality/validity of the Presidential results declared by Jean Mensah on the basis of figures contained in same.

If I may ask, how can anyone expect the NDC to do any true and proper collation of results on the basis of polling station pink sheets and constituency summary results sheets that contain several patent arithmetic errors and arrive at any accurate outcome? I don’t get it!