John Mahama
FORMER PRESIDENT John Dramani Mahama has revealed his real motive for going to the Supreme Court after the 2020 elections.
He said his main purpose of filing the 2020 presidential election petition was not to overturn the results declared by the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean A. Mensa, but to calm the nerves of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters who were agitated by infractions in the elections.
According to him, the Supreme Court’s petition was also not meant to claim victory, except to douse the tense atmosphere which pertained in the country at the time.
Mr. Mahama was further of the view that anomalies occurred in the elections affected the results, which eventually angered supporters of the NDC.
In attempt to calm the party’s supporters, the ex-President said he decided to rely on the provisions of the 1992 Constitution by going to the apex court to resolve the matter.
Mr. Mahama made the revelation last Sunday, while addressing the United States Chapter of the NDC at the Bentley University.
“We have all done elections before, and at the printing press, all the political parties are supposed to send agents there. We sit there from the time they start printing until we finish.
“When they finish, we all tally how many ballots they were asked to print, and we all look at the numbers and everything, and if we are satisfied, then all the agents sign a certificate of completion to say that we are satisfied; and that it tallies with the number they were asked to print,” he recounted the process.
He continued, “And so, we did that at the printing press and left. But one of our agents had to go back. He was going to look for something; he had left his laptop bag and so he was going to look for it only for him to see millions of ballot papers being printed.”
“When he asked why they were printing extra ballot papers, they said the EC had asked them to print. Out of frustration, they said in case there was a second round (sic). But seven people will not go for second round. Ballot papers for a second round is only for two people, the top two. No proper explanation on why those ballot papers were printed was given.”
“Some of the people were seen later carrying ballot papers, and we reported them to the police. Up till date, nobody has been charged or prosecuted for carrying those extra ballot papers,” he said.
“These are the things that happened in the elections, and so, we thought the elections weren’t free and fair, and so we went to the Supreme Court; one, to test our legal right, and then secondly, to also calm the atmosphere,” Mr. Mahama stressed.
“The atmosphere was quite charged. A few of our people took to the streets. There was a threat of violence, and we didn’t want to go down that path and so it was better to use what the constitution has given us.”
“Once we filed the suit, I noticed that it calmed everybody, and of course, we went and got 7:0 on every issue that we raised.”
“The seven-member panel of the Supreme Court, by a unanimous decision threw out the petition on March 4, 2021, on the grounds that it defeated the purpose of coming to court,” he recounted further.
BY Vincent Kubi