Amanda Clinton Esq: Presidential Replay Like Malawi?

Malawi is only the second African country to overturn a presidential election, after Kenya in 2017.

It is the first in which the opposition won the re-race.

The initial vote in May 2019 narrowly returned incumbent Peter Mutharika to the presidency.

But in February 2020, a landmark decision by the Constitutional Court of Malawi overturned the result citing “ widespread, systematic and serious ” irregularities, including the now infamous use of corrective fluid in vote counting and voting. failure of the Malawi Election Commission (MEC) to deal with complaints before results are announced.

New elections were ordered within 150 days.

This led to the Opposition winning a replay of Malawi’s presidential election in a historic first on the continent.

Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, a member of the NDC legal team and lawmaker, said the NDC is in the process of assembling its documents and will file a case in various courts by December 30.

Akufo-Addo is said to have polled 51.59% of the valid presidential votes against his main candidate and former president John Dramani Mahama, who would have obtained 47.36% of the presidential vote.

It will be interesting to see if the NDC case leads to a historic 3rd decision on the continent given the admission by our Election Commission of corrected anomalies in relation to the elections.

Perhaps a case will be presented by the NDC in connection with other anomalies which cannot be ignored by our courts.

The only thing that will lead to a presidential and parliamentary reruns in Ghana are “widespread, systematic and serious” irregularities and the failure of the Ghanaian Election Commission to deal with complaints before announcing the results.

In such a case, our judicial system will have no choice but to call for a new presidential election and possible parliamentary reruns within 150 days of their decision.

Although the appointment of 11 Supreme Court justices by Mr. Nana Akufo-Addo over the past 2 years would be enough to make any political party think twice before seeking redress from the Supreme Court of Ghana; the case of the NDC in relation to the elections may well test whether there is a case to be answered in terms of systematic and serious generalized irregularities.

Our judges will have to rule accordingly.