Lawyers of the first respondent, Electoral Commission (EC), and the second respondent, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in the Election 2020 petition filed by the defeated presidential candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Dramani Mahama, have filed their witness statements as directed by the seven-member Supreme Court Panel during its sitting on Wednesday, the 20^th of January 2021.

The petitioner who was however directed to file same for his suggested five (5) witnesses by 12:00 noon on the 21^st of January 2021 has as at today, Saturday the 23^rd of January 2021 failed to do so but has rather filed an application seeking to stay proceedings at the Supreme Court until his application for review of the Supreme Court’s decision on an earlier application for interrogatories has been heard.

The first respondent (EC) filed one witness statement in support of their case and the witness is the Chairperson of the EC, Mrs. Jean Mensa. On the other hand, the second respondent, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, by a power of attorney dated the 15^th of January 2021 appointing Peter Mac Manu to testify on his behalf has also filed one witness statement.

Source: AsaaseRadio

The Electoral Commission says the petition filed by 2020 NDC Presidential Candidate John Dramani Mahama is based on “extreme speculations” and an actual waste of the court’s time.

The Commission explains these speculations thrive on the existence of two wrong assumptions.

This is the decision by Mr. Mahama to hold on to the wrong figure mentioned as valid votes (13,434,574) even though the right figure is known.

The other assumption the EC says is the flagbearer’s determination to strangely assign all the Techiman South votes to himself even though the actual results were known to him at the time he decided to file the petition.

The EC however insists the Chairperson’s inadvertent mistake made during declaration did not change how Ghanaians voted on December 7.

It states that the 13,434,574 mentioned as total valid votes is an error.

Nana Akufo-Addo, the EC says obtained 6,730,413 representing more than 50% of the 13,121,111 valid votes (specifically 51.295%).

The EC further argues in this document that the petition fails to disclose how the alleged vote padding influenced the outcome of the elections.

The EC concludes that the petition does not merit a trial and is a total waste of the court’s time.

Source: MyJoyOnline.Com

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer for the 2020 polls, John Mahama, has argued that denying him the opportunity to serve interrogatories on the Electoral Commission (EC) will damage his election petition case at the Supreme Court.

Mahama’s concern is contained in his fresh application seeking to halt the election petition until the Supreme Court reviews it’s ruling on some 12 questions (interrogatories) he wants the Electoral Commission to answer.

The apex court in dismissing the interrogatories application said Mr. Mahama’s legal team failed to convince the court on the relevance of the questions.

In the application for a stay of proceedings, Mr. Mahama said he was compelled by “certain fundamental errors of law that the court made in its ruling leading to a miscarriage of justice.”

He said the denial of the chance to pose the interrogatories to the EC was “a serious miscarriage of justice which we expect to have remedied in the review.”

“At the hearing of this application, counsel will crave the indulgence of the Court to refer to the statement of case in support of the application for review, particular, to show that there are indeed serious matters of law that are to be determined in this review application, and I am likely to succeed, as the ruling of the court is manifestly in error.”

Though time has been noted as a concern in the case, Mr. Mahama further maintains that the “use of the mechanism of interrogatories will ensure a speedier trial.”

On why he wants the petition halted, Mr Mahama said there would be “irreparable harm” caused to his case because of the effect on pre-trial processes.

Source: CitiNewsRoom