Ghana’s Supreme Court will today begin hearing on the presidential election petition brought before it by the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) 2020 flagbearer John Mahama.
Mr Mahama is in the Apex court asking that it annuls the election results and allows a run-off between himself and the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) Nana Akufo-Addo.
Mr Akufo-Addo’s lawyers and that of the Electoral Commission (EC) have since filed responses to the petition.
They contend that the petition does not disclose any attack on the validity of the election held in 38,622 polling stations across the country.
They also claim the allegations of vote padding involving some 6,622 votes is empty and insignificant to materially affect the outcome of the election.
The respondents have, therefore, served notice of an initial objection to be raised urging the apex court to dismiss the petition and are calling for a date to be fixed for the legal arguments.
Other documents relating to the case cited by JoyNews reveal a hearing date fixed Thursday, January 14, 2021.
In these documents, Mr Mahama’s lawyers are asking to be allowed to correct errors in the petition.
A key issue to be corrected is a request that the Supreme Court allows the NDC Presidential Candidate to go into a run-off with the EC instead of NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo.
Meanwhile, Lawyers for President Nana Akufo Addo who say they are set for the hearing has served notice of opposing a motion filed by the NDC’s flagbearer asking the apex court to allow him to amend an error in the petition he filed.
“The petition is incompetent, frivolous, vexatious and discloses no reasonable cause for action,” a member of the NPP’s legal team Frank Davis told JoyNews.
But a member of the NDC’s legal team, Abraham Amaliba questioned the basis for objection by the President’s legal team adding that “any lawyer will tell you that these are matters that are common.”
“To have the lawyers of Akufo-Addo who are well-experienced to say that they will oppose it – on what grounds. This is not an amendment that is going to substantially change the grounds of our petition,” Mr Amaliba added.