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The Supreme Court set out five questions for the trial in the 2020 election petition. It is up to the petitioner to convince the court that on the basis of his pleadings and the testimony of his three witnesses and their cross-examinations, he was able to prove his thesis that no one obtained more than 50% of the valid votes cast in the elections. .
Therefore, the Court should order the resumption of the elections. Respectfully, as an uneducated member of the public, I am not satisfied that the petitioner has met the onus of presenting evidence to support his case.
Let us now move on to the various figures published by the EC. First, there was only one statement on December 9, not six statements as some claim.
Second, all parties recognize that using the total votes cast as the total valid votes cast when announcing the results was a mistake. The applicant and his witnesses all say so in their court documents.
Third, the valid votes cast for each candidate at the time the EC President made the declaration have been indicated and the percentages of these have also been indicated. The percentages she mentioned in the statement were NOT of the total votes cast, but of the total valid votes cast correctly for all candidates. In declaring that of President Akufo-Addo, she again erred in saying 51.595% instead of 51.295%.
Then, she clearly stated that these results excluded those of the riding of Techiman South. So when Techiman South’s results were added later, it gave new numbers for the valid votes cast.
Then four constituencies in the Greater Accra region, according to the EC, corrected their results after the declaration, with a net effect of 1,650 votes. Again, if you adjust these numbers for all candidates, it is clear that this also gives you another number for the valid votes cast.
At this point, as far as I am concerned, the EC has given verifiable reasons for the different figures resulting from each of the above situations.
However, in the first press release released, the statement mentioned that she mistakenly used a certain number as a valid vote cast in her statement. Obviously, whoever issued this statement did not refer to their statement which was publicly available on all news portals and available to the EC itself so that person did not give a figure different from what Mrs Jean Mensa wrongly used on December 9th.
For me personally, this figure is the only figure in this whole petition that still has not been explained. But knowing that this was also a mistake, the EC duly corrected this press release and removed the original version from its website. Making a mistake in a press release and correcting it, respectfully, should not lead to the conclusions and remedies requested by the petitioner.
So, I have taken my time to explain to you how it is that there are legitimately different valid vote figures published by the EC.
I voted in all presidential and parliamentary elections from 1992 to 2020. The level of public commitment and transparency demonstrated by the current EC has never happened before under the 4th Republic! You can hate Jean Mensa, but you cannot erase the historical facts.
There is time and room for everything and while the EC can improve several aspects of how the 2020 elections were run, I honestly think some of Jean Mensa’s criticisms are excessive and not based on facts. Whatever the outcome of this petition, and I see only one outcome, Ghanaians will have the opportunity to hold the EC and its President to account. I do not agree that the most transparent EC we have had under the 4th Republic is to shirk responsibility.
On the contrary, as I have said several times in various articles, we are currently facing a contradictory election petition and therefore do not expect the President of the EC to naively help the petitioner’s case. Once the election petition is over, Jean Mensa and the EC will open to the public and answer all questions, even under oath in a parliamentary commission of inquiry. For now, allow him to fight in this antagonistic election petition. I rest my case.
12/2/2021
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