Mahama Spent $180m To 'Buy' 2012 Election

Investigations carried out by the New Statesman indicates that the 2012 Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress, John Dramani Mahama, who was declared the winner of the December 7 and 8 presidential election by Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, and is being sworn into office today as the president, spent over $180m just to ‘buy’ the 2012 election.

According to top NDC sources, at least $180m (nearly GHC350m) was spent on the 2012 campaign by President Mahama and the NDC from the centre. It is by a huge margin, the most expensive campaign ever ran in this country and relatively even more so than what incumbents spend in larger and richer Nigeria. Our investigations show that a chunk of the money was disbursed in November from the Ministry of Finance for unbudgeted expenditure, including the payments to rlg for distribution of laptops embossed with President Mahama’s campaign pictures. The organisations that were used for this unprecedented vote buying spree included LESDEP, SADA, rlg, NADMO, Zoomlion, as well as some chiefs.

Sources at the Ministry of Finance believe most of the money disbursed close to the election was laundered through the organisations and ended up in the campaign coffers of the NDC.

According to a ‘rigging’ document cited by the New Statesman before the election, the NDC targeted 180 constituencies where they bribed officials of the Electoral Commission, and even some agents of the NPP, with various sums of money. In the Volta Region, parts of Central, Western, Brong-Ahafo and the three northern regions, over GHC80m was spent directly to buy votes. In the Upper West, voters were given GHC50 as they stood in the queue to vote. In the Volta Region, especially some places in the Ketu South and North Dayi constituencies, as much as GHC100 per head was paid. The overall strategy was to target households and between GHC200-600 was paid per household, an amount which seemed like manna from heaven for many poor families. Truck load of motorbikes, bicycles, outboard motors, sewing machines, rice, cloth, laptops and phones followed NDC campaign vehicles as the ruling party invaded communities in target areas buying votes.

Some parliamentary candidates, for example in the Nzema areas, were seen distributing monies themselves.

SADA distributed tractors a few days before election; rlg, which received GHC100m in the last few weeks of the campaign, gave out free laptops with pictures of the president. The unit price per these laptops remains known to only a few.

NPP BOYCOTTS MAHAMA -As he takes ‘temporary’ custody of presidency today John Dramani Mahama, president-elect, as declared by Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the Electoral Commission, is expected to be sworn into office today as the president of the nation in line with the provisions of the 1992 constitution. The main opposition New Patriotic Party is not taking part in the swearing-in ceremony, following its decision to boycott the activity in protest against the outcome of the December 7 and 8 general elections whose validity the party is challenging at the Supreme Court.

Boakye Agyarko, Campaign Manager of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Presidential Candidate of the NPP, has asked all party members and supporters to remain calm, as they await the outcome of the electoral petition at the Supreme Court. In an interview with the New Statesman yesterday, Mr Agyarko noted that the fact that Mr Mahama was being sworn into office as the president “does not end the matter, as the challenge over the legitimacy of his declared victory in the presidential election is being pursued in court by our party.”

According to Mr Agyarko, Mr Mahama may only be taking ‘temporary custody’ of the presidency in line with the nation’s constitution, just as it applies in the traditional installation of a chief.

He likened the situation in the country at the moment to a situation where a chief is enstooled and it later turns out he was not an odehye(a royal) or the process that led to his enstoolment was defective.

“If there is a question of succession in my village, in the heat of the dispute someone may be enstooled or enskined. However if in the aftermath, it is found that the person so enstooled is not qualified either because he is not a royal or the process was defective, the society will not simply say that because he has already been enstooled, it will let that enstoolment stand,” Mr Agyarko explained. He added: “Indeed, every society in this land will see this as a sacrilege and take urgent steps to reverse the status quo. That should not be different for Mahama if the courts should rule against him.”

"The Constitution anticipates the President being sworn in before the Supreme Court's decision that is why it says the court can declare the results invalid without prejudice to whatever the president has done. It did not say president-elect," Mr Agyarko explained further.

According to Nana Akufo-Addo’s campaign manager, he and many like-minded Ghanaians will find it “extremely difficult to see how on the face of our evidence any judge can say the result as declared was valid.”

Mr Agyarko commended Nana Akufo-Addo for staying true his democratic beliefs, adding that the nation had remained peaceful mainly because of the constitutional approach he had had adopted in challenging the results of the elections.

“Ghana has remained peaceful because Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP have chosen to respect the constitutional provisions in seeking redress to our electoral grievances. Ghana remains peaceful because we want justice, and justice must be done and seen to be done,” he added.