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Supreme Court: Round 1 NPP Runs Away

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 Source: The Informer

News Desk Report With Additional File From Radioxyzonline.com

There are credible indications that Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential Candidate in the last year’s December 7/8 general elections, is likely to withdraw from the court case pending before the Supreme Court.

These indications manifested yesterday at the Supreme Court, when the NPP objected to certain judges empanelled to hear whether the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) should be allowed to join in the court case.

A tactics, Akufo-Addo is using is that once the NPP objects to any one or two of the judges empanelled to sit on the case, then the NDC is also likely to petition against some of the other judges.

This could lead to a situation where almost all the Supreme Court judges will have a petition against them, one way or the other; a situation that will enable the disgraced defeated Akufo-Addo, to withdraw the petition he and other NPP members had filed against Dr. Kwadwo Afari- Gyan and his Electoral Commission (EC), claiming the elections were rigged in favour of President John Mahama.

However, what Nana Akufo-Addo has failed to realize is the fact that he cannot win 2 out of 10 regions and become President.

Though, The Informer is comfortable with the NPP’s decision to contest the results of the elections in court so as to manage its humiliating defeat and to appease its illiterate followers (most of whom are shoe shine boys and coconut sellers), we humbly appeal to the NDC not to follow the NPP’s weird objections and eventually play into its modus operandi to withdraw from the court case.

NPP protests composition of Supreme Court; case adjourned

The Supreme Court has adjourned sine die, the hearing of the preliminary joinder motion filed by the NDC seeking to join the petition by the NPP challenging the election results.

The case was adjourned after the lawyers for the New Patriotic Party protested the composition of the court. They argued that the composition of the court, presided over by Justice Atuguba, is skewed against them. There were nine Supreme Court judges sitting on the case. NPP is expected to file a motion to state their case.

The NDC says it wants to join the suit because it provided the platform for President Mahama to contest the just-ended elections, which he won.

The party filed a supplementary affidavit to its motion to join a petition by Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, his running mate, and Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, challenging the declaration of President John Dramani Mahama as winner of the December 2012 presidential election.

The supplementary affidavit, which was filed on Wednesday and deposed to on behalf of the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, said, "A denial of the applicant the opportunity to be joined so as to be heard in respect of this election would be a denial of the constitutional rights of the applicant."

According to the supplementary affidavit, the NDC had represented its interest, that of its presidential candidate and parliamentary candidates "in the deliberations of the Electoral Commission (EC) with all political parties and candidates in connection with the elections" and, for that reason, the party had the right to be joined to the petition.

Source: The Informer