Election Petition - When did the genesis of reason become a dogma?

I am the first to say that going to court instead of war is always the best thing for any democracy. For checks and balances to play the desired role in government the judiciary should have oversight over other branches of government and intra-angularly vice versa.

After court day eight the noose was tightening faster than they thought around the necks of the petitioners. The night before this day of the election petition I went to bed and by morning I was going to put up some thoughts about the ongoing Supreme Court case in writing then I realised I had to go to work.

By the end of the day I was thrilled to read that lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata had “nailed it.” During this whole petition I have been wondering why one persons dislike for something should allow him to concoct evidence to deny over 4 million voters their right of franchise.

Also, should an aberration by the electoral commissioner, persons, chosen by parties as elated members of society, party affiliates and others course any one’s vote not to be counted or disenfranchised? How will this kind of law be accommodated in any democracy?

Electoral votes of individuals who have flouted the electoral laws during the voting process should blame themselves. For instance, by thumb printing two candidates on an electoral paper is an obvious error that could lead to a vote to be rejected. What we do not know is there a possibility to ask for a new ballot paper to remedy this personal mistake.

Are there remedies for accountability in such a human error in the electoral law? This could be something that many do not know the answer to. Will it be an outright lost of vote because it will not to be counted? These are questions, answers and modifications that we need to improve on as we deepen our democracy. Because to err is human!

In this particular case what I also considered and was echoed in the lawyer Tsikata’s cross examination is that for instance even if we assume the all the different aberrations might have occurred in one way or the other just to play the "devil's advocate" here. How specific can we link every aberration to individual votes cast, especially so knowing that the votes are actually persons. Answers to all these questions will tell us that where there are no breaches of law reason is the ultimate arbiter.

It is unfortunate that not all Ghanaian observers have all the facts or are privy to the affidavits submitted in court so any contributions that are made to the case would be made by this limitation. I just thought that if the petitioners did not see any opening to sit in court because they were initially blinded by the "All Die Be Die" mantra.

Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Djan did show the NPP where to vent their grievances instead of the demonstrations on the street, thuggery, vandalism and brutality meted against journalists and ordinary citizens in the early hours to days after the election results were officially announced.

The stalwarts of the NPP including their evidence in chief who later graduated to witness in chief attested to this fact that they were in court in order to challenge his bluff because they've been asked to do so.

The question then become how do you present a formidable evidence hence, as we have been told they needed not their best lawyers but my "brother" from the north, Dr. Bawumia whom they call a statistician, economist and a banker to orchestrate an attack with his skills in numbers.

To be able to do this the numbers should be humongous to necessitate a hearing at the Supreme Court. So what basically started with the lawyer Ms Adjoa Safo; whose late father might have once been my family doctor.

The Dome-Kwabenya vote counting mistake was perceived as a nationwide scheme of rigging, at least this was what the lady said to the press. Although, this single incident was resolved there and there by all parties represented and expected for all cases was elevated and extrapolated into a national complain and campaign. Thinking they have a better chance of subverting the will of the people by this methodology.

Even though with the NPP's own national campaign Chairman Mr. Agyarko agreeing with observers in Ghana and globally that this has been the freest, fairest, hi-tech and excellent elections ever held in Ghana. There was a caveat but, if the NPP does not win it will not accept the results.

What was extremely an isolated case albeit resolved before it could even get to the Electoral Offices per the in-built structures of the EC metastasized into "rent seeking" from the so-called 22 "ghost polling stations" which failed to materialise. They have ever since been proven wrong that those polling stations existed.

The NPP accepted defeat because they had assigned or posted polling agents there to represent the party. What some NPP sympathiser overseas, specifically in Washington DC, USA indirectly warned about was in his article about the Kenya experience to look critically into that, which will not be significant enough like relying on just 22 polling stations coincidentally as was sampled for the Kenyan verdict.

By the way D.C., however, far away it is from Ghana, is like Russia from Alaska as Sarah Palin said, "I can see Russia from my backyard." Similarly, I would be say it is a city "I can see from where I live" and in Ghana parlance "a stone throw from where I live." This is just a bit of humour. "Now let’s get to the serious matter."

No sooner than not the NPP leader went on a bird hunting or better still maybe a fishing trip not in any of our rainforests in Ashanti region or the sea and freshwaters of the Volta basin. But rather flew into the sky and far into the clouds where they found themselves floating higher and higher unable to land on earth in the end. "A bird in had is better that a thousand in the bush." Why this analogy?

They went on a shopping spree after this jackpot of advice to produce something very significant. Then the search became an obsession other than a virtue. "Let’s vamp up the numbers as much as we can" to justify our inclusion in the case.

So there was a deliberate evidence gathering as you can image as tall as Mount Kilimanjaro as one NPP writer accused lawyer Tony Lithur of peeling off or "slicing this huge natural phenomenon with a kitchen knife."

Fair enough everyone knew the statement was just to debase one of the best cross examiners Tony Lithur, in the case that have captured the imagination of countries that hitherto, have revered Ghana as a beacon of hope for democracy in Africa.

What I have seen so far with Tony Lithur though, could be likened to prosecutor Juan Martinez in the ongoing cross examination in the Jodi Arias trial.

The initial cozy journey from one Dome issue (resolved) was elevated to 22 polling stations and incrementally became what is today called the landmark case in Ghana. Where the NPP wishes that only their votes should be counted irrespective of even the polling stations without any reverence to the Ghanaian voter?

Such that any aberrations that might have occurred should solely be blamed on the electoral commissioner, the current president and the NDC. As the dominos were lined up in their millions of their affected areas and votes these included some initial 700 plus polling stations which were later on withdrawn from contention in court prior to that some 35 polling stations were also withdrawn.

Then the story became some 4,000 plus polling stations with an additional 7,000 plus polling stations making a total of over 11,000 polling station results being contested. These translated into over 4.6 million votes of over 4.6 million Ghanaians who voted. Wow!

How insensitive can these people be to their fellow citizens that they want to rule? I immediately, thought about Mitt Romney who said in a donor’s dinner that, he did not care about the 47 percent of Americans. Many believed till this very day that such a statement contributed to his defeat by President Barack Obama.

Certainly, the NPP did not care about 4.6 million Ghanaians who voted many of whom had to forgo their meals, remain in be in line from dawn to dusk not knowing when they will vote and in some areas in the north people has to wait another arduous day.

One may ask what does one gain in a democracy if their vote will just be rejected because some social elite does not like how they look, the poor in Ghana (at a rate of 27%), disabled, sick, old, illiterate (43.4%); which many of our compatriots are, and where they came from.

I mean for example the 8 eight regions that President Mahama won hands done. Then considering the record inroads the NDC made into even the other 2 regions the NPP won showed that the NDC is a national party.

Although, the rules of the elections were clear as to complain that could be presented after signing of pink sheets. Another was none signing of pink sheets does not negate the validity of any statutory vote cast. In the course of and long after the elections no polling agent of the NPP, executive or party representative thought it necessary to file any report or even launch the formal route of complain. Because of how crisp the nature of the elections was, any complain would have been superfluous.

We all saw how by swearing on the Koran in the first day of testimony during cross examination the learned colleague was shaken to the core to initially admit all the treachery in the numbers and affidavits of duplication, deceit and dishonesty rattled the court chambers.

"I thought these were people seeking perfection," so how could they have gotten it so wrong. After a while the court went on few minutes break as Justice Atubuga came to the rescue. It was a well deserved; "saved by the bell" I would say.

After they returned from break and upon advice by the party and the counsel Addison everything had changed from reason into a dogma.

Some might have blamed the "shoddy job done" by the lawyer for the Electoral Commission Quarshie-Idun. Some people say he was perspiring a lot, as he was even asked by the Chairman to take a seat. Others felt he was drunk, due to the enormity the evidence from the petitioners.

Let us not forget that he is a civil servant and did not require being too aggressive to the witness. His major "home run" and achievement was when he went on to educate Dr. Bawumia who was oblivious about the electoral the law by making the witness read to the hearing of all assembled in the court.

I can assure everyone that the shoddy label can go to the witness in chief, in the sense that be it mathematics, statistics, social sciences; e.g., economics Dr. Bawumia could not pin point the evidence and link it to a particular vote but only to skew his findings in favour of the NPP.

To say that the evidence is on the pink sheets is no proof especially if no NPP polling agent complained. What would have been the reason for the folly?

Except that, "we thought we won." The NPP said.

To the extent that the following day a Sunday the NPP asked all its supporters to dress in white and go church and praise God for their victory. This did further testify to their confidence in the elections or may be otherwise, a ploy to really "muddy the waters." whichever way you look at it they were bad sportsmen and bad losers.

Remember, Suarez who brought Ghana's World Cup dream to a sad end. The same player in a recent encounter with his team in England was so callous to bite off an opponent's ear in the UK which disgusted even Prime Minister Cameron. This is exactly what bad loser's (NPP) do.

There are a whole lot of things that need to be tested ketosis, the robustness of the evidence, all will determine the significance (1 to 5) of the links to particular votes say the NDC's and not the NPP's and so on and so forth.

There is the need for an accompanying person to person interview or some form of questionnaire for the participants, polling agents, voters and the numerous observers to back the results on paper as evidence.

Dr. Bawumia's analysis could not have been any shoddier than that, an unknown methodology; be it chi-square, t-statistic, ANOVA or regression analysis we are yet to know.

These methods are not used in isolation otherwise they will become mere examples and nothing to the benefit of the human user. Especially when primary data is tempered with in such a way to arrive at secondary data under purposive selection as we have seen in this case.

Otherwise, it could not even be scientifically tunable because it will just be what Bill Gates once said, "computer will do only what you ask it to do." By this I mean the overemphasizing a CD-ROM by Dr. Bawumia is not representative enough.

I will liken his CD-ROM to a file cabinet except that it could be faster to access data. Hence, could not be the sine qua non to everything knowledgeable in this contest.

He also said the computer will not end the usefulness of books Bill Gates is an ardent reader of books. This speaks to the fact that Dr. Bawumia should have had a good summary of what he was talking about in his presentation. An executive summary and abstract are apt to make a researcher speak about a completed study and answer any question without always seeking a CD-ROM if it is genuine.

My worry here is, based on the evidence in chief/witness in chief's case and assertion that there were all these; omissions, no voter biometric verification; was disputed that everyone was biometrically verified March 1, 2013, "ghost polling stations (debunked); it turned out that there were no ghost after all," duplication (questioned without proof), non-signing of pink seeks; was a mark of signatories not pressing hard enough to imprint copies under carbon paper.

As we go on and on all the million domino blocks of evidence came tumbling down until all the evidence were flattened.

It reminds me of the case of infamous Korean biotechnology professor Hwang Woo-suk of Seoul National University comes to mind. When he faked a stem cell research experiment and ended his career, this tells us that even respected persons can deliberately mislead people sometimes but cannot continue to perpetuate the evil all the time.

It all became like "forget about the swearing on Koran" as might have been said by the NPP lawyers and remember we said to our supporters, Ghana will be Kandahar if we did not win. So, be as evasive as possible, be "dancing around the question," as had been noted by Justice Atubuga and be as theatrical (NPP's thought process) as you can be till the end.

I think I have written extensively about all the parties involved and at this stage I going to thank readers, petitioners, witnesses, respondents, counsels, TV and the Supreme Court for their hard work. Now it is the turn of the Supreme Court to be written about.

The seemingly unpreparedness of the Supreme court in the initial stages of the sittings had improved tremendously as time went on. They came out strong after court day three to demand as faster cross examination, firm to withhold objections rightly in NPP's favour.

Though, this initial hiccup was a result of not thinking through all the scenarios that makes for the airtight procedures and rules applicable in this court. In hindsight we will give them the benefit that no human institution is perfect and probably the very reason the NPP was told to go to court.

Now we know the court can also be ill-prepared mainly because there have not been many of such petitions in history but has become a new field of endeavour as countries become more democratic. I have followed and bought the book Bush V. Gore, 2000/01, there have been the earliest petitions in the 18th century, England, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Bosnia, Kenya, Venezuela, and Ghana just to mention the few.

The recent Kenyan electoral dispute/petition ended well because of their past experience and preparedness. People felt there was a conflict of interest but Chief Justice Mutunga proved to be credible in the end.

They had various laws for pre-voting, during voting and post voting. So during the post election petition by Raila Odinga the Supreme Court had established 32 points a checklist that included even security cost. I would say these could easily fit into chapters into any book. It is so detailed that anything thing that was investigated and written about by the end of the trial will be published into a book. Ghana Supreme Court should produce a book after this case.

Our Supreme Court did simplify its intensions to consider just what various things went wrong under the law and whether those were significant to affect the results of the 2012 elections of Ghana in such a manner that another contestant could have won rather than pronounced by the electoral commissioner.

My plea is, and I will say, "fair enough" but the Supreme Court should also make it a point to publish a book on its findings and the whole court process.

I would have thought that the supreme court should have done these number of things; bring experts from all relevant state institutions to bare on the case, which should have included institutions like the Ministry of Finance they will have to factor the cost into subsequent budget.

Also the Department of Statistics (Statistical Service), ISSER, Auditor General, Accountant General to cost the whole process, even university professors. How can GBC TV be solvent if they perform such duties like a live telecast for free?

It was also observed that productivity had declined in some establishments because people were glued to their TV sets instead of working. There have been concerns about the numerous striking workers e.g., teachers and doctors an unpleasant situation in the country mirroring the political polarization of the populace. All these need to be factored into some investigative nomenclature and assessed.

The justices, judges and lawyers have to be paid and looking at the man hours of all the well dressed persons in the court. Couldn't they have been doing some profitable job elsewhere? The point is we should know the cost of every step of our democracy hence, it will be the only way we can incrementally develop our efficacy in good governance. Nothing should be pro bono.

As decision day draws near I must congratulate the NPP for trying but I must also be quick to say that the pursuit of reason is good for real democracy.

The birds have come home to roost and I was glad when Nana Addo agreed with the Foreign Minister of Germany Mr. Westerwelle that, they will respect which ever decision the Supreme Court makes on the petition for the sake of Ghana's democracy.