Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Electoral Commission Chairman
Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday January 9, 2013.
The Electoral Commission (EC) has filed a defence
to contest the allegation leveled against it by the opposition New Patriotic Party
(NPP) that it ‘fixed’ the December 7 and 8, 2012 general elections in favour of
the ruling national Democratic Congress (NDC) whose candidate John Dramani
Mahama was sworn in as President on Monday.
The NPP filed a writ at the Supreme Court claiming
that EC Chairman, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan on December 10, 2012 called the results
for President Mahama in spite of its claims that the EC needed to investigate
alleged manipulation of figures before the declaration of the results.
Responding to the NPP’s claims, second respondent
EC, who filed their application on January 7, through their lawyers Lynes
Quarshie-Idun & Co and copied to Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co, lawyers for
the petitioners and Tony Lithur of Lithur Brew & Co, lawyer for President
Mahama denied the petitioner’s allegation that the offices of Superlock
Technologies (STL) was used to transmit results during the election.
The affidavit sworn to by Kwadwo Sarfo-Kantanka, a
deputy Commissioner of EC averred that rather STL was just a company that won
the contract to supply the commission with Very Small Aperture Terminals
(VSATs) where registration data could be sent from registration centres to the
head office.
The EC averred further that election results were
transmitted directly to the strong room of the commission from its own
collation centres.
It said the representatives of the contesting parties
were given copies of the result sheets at the collation centres.
In the defence, the EC said that the total number
of registered voters copies of which were forwarded to the parties was 14, 031,
680 and added that figure14, 158, 890 used to declare the results was a
‘geniune’ error but that had no bearing on the results declared.
The commission said it rather affected the voter
turnout by increasing it to 80.15 percent from79.43 percent.
The
NPP’s writ has its presidential candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, running
mate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and NPP Chairman Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey as the
petitioners.
President
Mahama, in his personal capacity as presidential candidate of the National
Democratic Congress (NDC) and the EC, the body that supervised the December
general elections have been cited as respondents in the suit.
The
Petitioners are praying that the highest court of the land to declare that
“John Dramani Mahama was not validly elected president of the Republic of
Ghana.”
They
also want the court to declare that “Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the 1st
Petitioner herein, rather was validly elected President of the Republic of
Ghana,” as well as “Consequential orders as to this court may deem fit.”
The
petitioners said Nana Akufo-Addos’s votes were unlawfully reduced while John
Mahama’s were illegally padded.
Per the NPP’s calculation, Nana Akufo-Addo polled
4,853,114 representing 50.28 percent with while President Mahama should have
had 4,658,352 representing 48.26 percent.
First respondent, President Mahama has entered
appearance to contest the case but has not yet filed a defense.
“In this context, it is important to emphasize
that this error has no bearing whatsoever on the total votes cast in the
election and consequently, the valid votes contained by each candidate,” it
averred.
The EC went ahead to describe the electoral
process to the court, giving details about how ballots are cast through to how
results are recorded and declared.
The EC is submitting that at all material times
the contesting parties had agents in all the polling stations and could have
asked for a recount if they cared.
The EC urged the court to reject the proposed
deductions put forward by the petitioners since neither formula nor the
justification for them had been presented by the petitioners nor had any
indication been given by the petitioners as to how the figures were arrived at.
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