Jean Mensa, Mac Manu testify for Akufo-Addo in the election petition
Peter Mac Manu of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa have testified against the 2020 Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama in the election petition.
The aggrieved Former President who is in Supreme Court for legal redress is seeking to annul the results of the election won by the NPP’s flagbearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and have a re-run of the polls.
On January 20, the Supreme Court announced January 26 as the date to commence hearing of the substantive aspect of the petition.
It also urged the parties in the case to file their respective witness statements.
READ ALSO: Mahama’s petition is baseless and total waste of court’s time— EC
Jean Mensa, Mac Manu testify for Akufo-Addo in the election petition
EC’s witness statement
The EC statement covered six pages and is signed by Jean Mensa.
She commenced her testimony by stating that the information she was putting across is from her own knowledge of events leading to the filing of the petition and other matters that have come after.
Mrs Mensa stated that the results of the 2020 elections held on December 7 were collated in accordance with Public Elections Regulations, 2020 (C.I 127).
She pointed out that Nana Akufo-Addo obtained 6,730,413 of the valid votes cast while John Mahama got 6,214,889.
In addition, she said the total valid votes stood at 13,121,111.
These figures she asserts showed that President Akufo-Addo got more than 50per cent of the valid votes.
She additionally argued that whatever votes remained outstanding at the time of declaration could not mathematically change the more than 50per cent of valid votes obtained by President Akufo-Addo.
She admited in her testimony that she inadvertently announced 13,434,574 as the total valid votes instead of stating this figure as total number of votes cast.
She insisted that a simple tabulation of all votes obtained by each candidate as declared comes to 13,121,111.
The form declaring the results, Mrs Mensa said was signed by eight agents of the candidates who were present at the time of the completion of the form.
Her inadvertence, she insists did not affect the constrictions threshold of 50per cent plus 1.
The error she explained was immediately corrected the next day by the EC through a statement.
On the Techiman South constituency results which were outstanding at the time of declaration, Mrs Mensa indicate that its inclusion or exclusion from the votes obtained by the candidates would not change the outcome of the results.
She concluded her testimony by denying claims the Commission padded votes in favour of Nana Akufo-Addo.
READ MORE: NPP presents comprehensive evidence on how it won the 2020 elections
Peter Mac Manu’s testimony
The NPP’s Peter Mac Manu on his part of the testimony revealed that President Akufo-Addo has appointed him to testify on his behalf.
He sets off the testimony by saying the petition is without merit and based on unfounded and misconceived assumptions.
He explained that the petition did not disclose any attack on the validity of the election held throughout the 38,622 polling stations and 311 special voting centers.
He described the allegations of wrong aggregation of votes and vote padding as “empty and collectively involve about 6,622 votes- this is a sum patently insignificant to materially affect the outcome of an election which 2nd respondent defeated Petitioner by well over 500,000 votes.”
He further indicated that Mr Mahama failed to disclose in the petition the number of valid votes he believed he actually obtained and what Mr Mahama believed President Akufo-Addo got to merit a run off.
“The Petition is largely conjectural and borne out of petitioner’s unfounded imagination”, Mr Manu added.
The entire petition, he argued is premised on the insignificant accuracies and slips made by the EC Chairperson in her declaration.
He insisted that the petition is a ruse and face-saving gimmick deployed by Mr Mahama after the official results declared by the EC and election observers showed he had lost the polls despite claiming victory earlier.
He ends by pointing out that he has attached to his statement videos of NDC leaders who had claimed John Mahama won the election by more than 51per cent of votes casts.
He further indicated that the petition however stated that no candidate obtained more than 50per cent of the votes including the NDC candidate who said to have won by more than 51per cent.
Source: www.spotonnews.net
