A member of the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) legal team, Abraham Amaliba, says the Supreme Court will decide the fate of the presidential election petition pending before it.
He has, therefore, downplayed President Nana Akufo-Addo’s response which is asking for the petition to be dismissed because it is frivolous and vexatious.
Mr Amaliba said this on Monday in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in reaction to President Akufo-Addo’s call for the Supreme Court to dismiss the Presidential Election Petition filed by former President John Dramani Mahama, Presidential Candidate of the NDC, in the December 7, 2020, polls.
President Akufo-Addo in his response to the Petition urged the highest court of the land to dismiss the Petition and that it was borne out of unfounded imagination.
However, Mr Amaliba disagreed with the President’s opinion on the matter and urged him to be present when the case is called.
“The President is aware that the Electoral Commission (EC) has admitted that it committed errors in the 9th December Declaration of the Presidential Election results. The President is aware that the EC admitted to that error. The President is aware that the EC subsequently sought to correct that mistake through a press statement, which was unsigned,” Mr Amaliba stated.
“But at the end of the day, when the EC gazetted the results of the 2020 election, the Commissioner gazetted the 9th December Declaration, which is an error, riddled election result declaration.
“So, these are matters that must be resolved in court. And so, for the President to say that our petition lacks merit is to say the least disingenuous on his part.”
Mr Amaliba noted that in any case, if one takes the President’s own response to the Petition, the President indicated that the Petition did not attack the validity of his election.
“It clearly shows that the President and his people don’t understand our electoral processes. Our electoral processes end at the declaration stage, where the EC would declare the elections,” Mr Amaliba said.
“And if the EC has declared wrong results, isn’t that against the Constitution? Isn’t that against article 63 (3) of the 1992 constitution? Where it states that the person to be declared as a winner should have attained more than 50 per cent.”
Article 63 (3): “A person shall not be elected as President of Ghana unless at the presidential election the number of votes cast in his favour is more than fifty per cent of the total number of valid votes cast at the election.”
He quizzed that if at the end of the day, the EC declares the result and a proper mathematics of those declaration would show that Akufo-Addo would get forty-nine point something per cent, but not cross the 50 per cent mark to become president, isn’t that an issue?
“So, I think that whatever they have they should go to court and defend themselves,” he said.