Mahama duly won 2012 polls - Afari-Gyan

Chairman of the Election Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has stated emphatically in the witness box at the Supreme Court that, so far as the commission is concerned, the election results announced after the December elections represented the true will of Ghanaians, and as such, President Mahama was duly elected.

Responding to questions from the lead counsel for the petitioners, Mr. Philip Addison on day 45 of the ongoing election petition, the resolute and highly confident EC boss stated that there would be no basis for him or the commission to change the verdict of the last election that declared President Mahama as a first round winner.

Not even a forceful attempt by Mr. Addison to have the EC Boss yield to his dictates that there was enough basis to alter the results of the last election to manifest the first petitioner, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s childhood dream of becoming a president, could push Dr. Afari-Gyan to change his mind before the nine member panel hearing the ongoing election petition, presided over by Justice William Atuguba.

Mr. Philip Addison on day 45 of the election petition hearing, which was expected to mark the end of his marathon cross-examination of the star witness of the second respondent, Dr. Afari-Gyan, confronted the witness with an analysis prepared by his clients that quantifies alleged varying irregularities.

The lead counsel for the petitioners claimed that based on 10, 081 pink sheets they are now relying on, instead of the 11,138 pink sheets, 742, 492 votes were affected by over-voting out of which 502,013 and 225,155 votes should be deducted from President Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo’s total votes respectively.

The charge of voting without biometric verification, Mr. Addison noted, affected, 810, 827 votes, and as a result, 558, 236 and 234,161 votes will similarly have to be deducted from the total votes of the first respondent and the first petitioner correspondingly.

Also, Mr. Addison puts it to Dr. Afari-Gyan that on the claims of absence of presiding officers' signatures on pink sheets, which he said affected 659, 135 votes, a total of 447,655 votes would have to be annulled from President Mahama’s total votes whiles 197,628 votes would also have to be taken out of Nana Akufo-Addo’s total votes.

The petitioners lead counsel also informed the court that, on claims of duplicate serial numbers, 3, 499, 308 votes were affected, and as such 2, 338, 993 votes will have to be annulled from the total votes of President Mahama, whereas 1,093,661 votes should be deducted from the votes of Nana Akufo–Addo.

Consistently discounting the petitioner’s lead counsel’s claim on all the alleged irregularities, Dr. Afari-Gyan explained that there was no way of determining which candidate benefited from an alleged irregularity, particularly the claim of over-voting.

He added that the mere fact that President Mahama won the 2012 election does not warrant claims that he was a beneficiary of an alleged over-voting as the petitioners sought to point out.