Accra, March 4, GNA – The Supreme Court, Thursday, unanimously dismissed the Petition filed by former President John Dramani Mahama, challenging the results of the 2020 Presidential Election, saying it is without merit.
The Court said the Petitioner, Mr John Dramani Mahama, who was the candidate of the National Democratic Congress, could not demonstrate how the errors made by the Electoral Commission affected the results of the presidential election, declared by Mrs Jean Adukwei Mensa, the Chairperson of the Commission.
The EC chair is the returning returning officer of presidential election.
“The petitioner has not produced any evidence to re-butt the presumption created by the publication of the C.I. 135”, for which the petitioner wanted a re-run ordered for the two candidates with the highest number of valid votes cast, the Court said.
According to the petition filed by Mr Mahama, none of the 12 candidates who contested the polls obtained more than 50 per cent of the total valid votes cast.
He alleged that the second respondent, the winner of the contest, benefitted from vote padding.
Additionally, Candidate Akufo-Addo benefitted from arithmetic and computational errors.
It, therefore, prayed the Court to rule that the election results, as declared by the EC Chairperson, breached the constitution.
It should also order the EC to conduct a second election for the two candidates with the highest numbers of valid votes cast in the December 7, 2020 polls.
The seven-member panel, however, said the Petitioner anchorred his case on the error made by the returning officer but those errors could also not take away the will of the people.
The two-hour judgement read by Chief Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah, held that the figures announced clearly gave the Second Respondent, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, 6,730,413 votes, representing 51.295 percent of total valid votes cast.
The apex Court ruled that the declaration by the EC did not violate Article 63 (3) of the 1992 Constitution.
The Court noted that the issue of alleged vote padding was a serious one but the Petitioner failed to prove the allegations with credible evidence.
The Court, however, was of the opinion that even if the vote padding had been proven, it did not affect the results announced by the EC on December 9, 2020.
It, consequently, affirmed Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as a validly elected President of Ghana.
The figures, as presented in the declaration made by the EC, clearly showed that President Akufo-Addo obtained more than 50 percent of the total valid votes cast to be the validly elected President of the Republic.
That fact, the court held, was admitted in the petition and also in the testimony of Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, who was Mr Mahama’s first witness.
The court held that the error made by the EC in using the total votes cast as the total valid votes during the declaration was corrected by the Commission on December 10, 2020, with the correction effected in accordance with the law.
GNA