Election petition: Mahama files motion to inspect pink sheets, others

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has filed a motion at the Supreme Court asking the Electoral Commission (EC) to furnish him with all 275 original copies of constituency collation forms for the presidential election.

Mr. Mahama filed through his lawyers on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, just after an earlier motion was dismissed by the apex court.

Aside from the request for the constituency collation forms, also known as pink sheets, his motion has five other requests of the EC including the originals of the Constituency Presidential Election Results Summary Sheets and the Regional Presidential Election Results Collation Forms.

Mr. Mahama also requested the records of “the alleged update to the purported declaration of presidential election results on 9th December 2020.”

According to the motion, Mr. Mahama wants:

1. The originals of the Constituency Presidential Election Results Collation Forms (Form 9) for all constituencies in Ghana;
2. The originals of the Constituency Presidential Election Results Summary Sheets (Form 10) for all constituencies in Ghana;
3. The originals of the Regional Presidential Election Results Collation Forms (Form 11) for all regions in Ghana;
4. The originals of the Regional Presidential Election Results Summary Sheets (Form 12) for all regions in Ghana;
5. The original of the Declaration of the Presidential Results Form (Form 13);
6. The records of the alleged update to the purported declaration of presidential election results on 9th December 2020, of the results of four Constituencies in the Greater Accra Region.

This is because of the omission of the Techiman South constituency from the declaration of results.

Mr. Mahama is now asking the Supreme Court to order a re-run of the presidential election for him and the incumbent.

According to the EC, President Akufo-Addo garnered 51.59 percent of the votes while Mr. Mahama got 47.37 percent.

What happened during the last hearing?

In the last hearing on the petition,  lawyers for Mr. Mahama had applied to the Supreme Court to serve 12 interrogatories on the EC.

He was seeking to compel the EC to provide answers to questions known in legal parlance as interrogatories.

The said interrogatories included the manner in which the results of the 2020 presidential polls were transmitted and the level of involvement of the National Communications Authority (NCA) in the process.

However, the lawyers for the EC and the President opposed the application.

They argued that John Mahama and his legal team were using the “back door” to seek further information from the EC that were not captured in their petition.

Mr. Akoto Ampaw, the lawyer for President Akufo-Addo, described the application as a “fishing expedition”.

The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision dismissed the application.

Source: Citinewsroom.com