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NPP Petition: Countdown to
Judgement Day (Part V)
By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
Sunday, August 25, 2013
ITEM 5: Factors that don’t favour the petitioners
The fundamental flaw of the NPP’s petition lies in its nature,
form, scope, and intents and purposes. The petition is seriously
flawed because of its wrong premise. In every reasonable
challenge of the outcome of general elections, the petitioners
ask for a recounting of votes, especially in places where they
felt cheated as a result of rigging or other malpractices that
turned the elections against them.
In the almighty United States, it happened in the State of
Florida at the 2000 general elections that helped George Bush
clinch victory when Al Gore halted any further challenge. In the
recent case in Kenya, the challenger (Raila Odinga) asked for a
recount of votes, but lost the appeal eventually.
Why not also in the case of the NPP of Ghana? The petitioners
took the wrong direction to concentrate on pink sheets instead
of ballot papers to be recounted, even if anything at all, at
the polling stations in the NDC’s strongholds that formed the
basis for their challenge. They didn’t turn that way toward a
recounting of votes. So, what could they expect? And do they
think that their holding of God hostage will be the answer to
their fundamentally flawed petition and request for Akufo-Addo
to be declared Ghana’s President?
We already know the difficulties surrounding the framing of the
petition to reflect anything substantial that the respondents
might not be able to defend. The petitioners skirted around and
fished deep in the course of evidence presentation but came up
empty-handed in the long run.
All their huffing and puffing couldn’t push Dr. Afari Gyan to
the wall for him to yield anything incontrovertible to boost
their allegations. His admission of irregularities concerning
non-signing of pink sheets by Presiding Officers is nothing
consequential to the cause of the petitioners. So also are
issues surrounding serial numbers and biometric verification.
There was no acceptable definition for “over-voting” and at the
end of the cross-examination of Dr. Afari Gyan by Philip Addison
(counsel for the petitioners), it became clear that no voter in
Ghana voted more than the legally binding “one voter one vote”.
Had anybody been exposed as voting more than once, the
petitioners might have a good point to stand on. They couldn’t
even prove that anybody voted outside Ghana despite their hoarse
and ugly shouts concerning the 241,000 prospective voters that
they accused the EC of registering overseas!!
The petitioners made much fuss for nothing about over-voting and
couldn’t adduce any concrete evidence from any polling station
to that effect. After all, their star witness, Dr. Mahamudu
Bawumia, had made it clear with his “You and I were not there”
cacophony. Neither could his claim that “For my analysis, I only
used the duplicated/triplicated data only once”.
In the end, the Court couldn’t even know the exact quantum of
pink sheets that the petitioners framed their case around. That
was why Addison was asked again on the last day of sitting to
come clean.
The respondents punched holes in Dr. Bawumia’s testimony,
creating serious doubts about his credibility and portraying the
so-called “water-tight” evidence as nothing but the product of
desperation.
Thus, if the petitioners and their followers are posturing in
public and thumping their chest in anticipation of victory at
the Supreme Court as reported, they will only be over-speeding
toward the political quagmire awaiting them.
The mirage that they have been chasing all along is at the edge
of that quagmire, waiting to suck them in.
They will be disappointed in the end because the parameters that
the Court set itself don't call for declaring Akufo-Addo the
winner. Those parameters portray more of the need to sustain the
status quo ante than shifting the paradigm in favour of those
who lost the elections but are now using technicalities to enter
political office through the back-door.
A careful analysis of the two areas defined by the Supreme Court
shows that the judges are only interested in whether the
irregularities that the petitioners are complaining about did
occur. And we all saw from the proceedings that some
irregularities (non-signing of pink sheets by Presiding
Officers, for instance) occurred. But as Dr. Afari Gyan
insisted, only 990 out of the 26,002 pink sheets were affected.
More importantly, though, all the polling agents signed all the
pink sheets. Additionally, other pieces on the pink sheets that
validated the elections were side-stepped by the petitioners!!
Thus, the judges will in the end determine whether the so-called
"irregularities" were substantial enough to cause them to go to
the extreme of overturning the results.
So far, we don’t dispute the fact that there were some
irregularities (as is to be expected of human institutions that
are not sacrosanct—because we human beings are not infallible).
Those irregularities aren’t substantial enough to warrant any
overturning of the outcome of Election 2012—a painful fact that
the Supreme Court will reveal on August 29 to the utter dismay
and unjustifiable anger among the petitioners and their
followers.
Looked at from a wider angle, it is clear that the petitioners
have hamstrung themselves with their being selective in choosing
the areas on which to base their case. By going for only pink
sheets in the NDC's strongholds, they have made it difficult for
a bird's eye view to be taken of the elections in terms of all
the 26,002 polling stations. So, the judges are constrained and
can't use their skewed pink sheet exhibits as the basis for
annulling over 4 million votes or for declaring the entire
elections as improperly run for which they must declare
Akufo-Addo outright as the winner. What will be the legal basis
for such an unusual determination? None exists!!
Again, the Supreme Court will be constrained in ruling for a
re-run. As is obvious already, the petitioners don't trust the
EC. Who then will conduct the re-run? Again, should it involve
all the 26,002 polling stations or only those identified by the
petitioners as where the irregularities occurred? What will be
the justification for the Supreme Court's acquiescence in this
sense when pink sheets were not gathered from Akufo-Addo's
strongholds to make the exhibits representative of the global
picture concerning Election 2012?
More importantly—as I have already identified and expressed
elsewhere—retaining the status quo will be the lesser evil than
disregarding reality to empower Akufo-Addo. The peace that
everyone is calling for cannot be assured otherwise. Of course,
the NPP camp may want to indulge in riotous conduct when
declared losers but they can be contained when the full force of
the state security apparatus is brought down to bear heavily on
them.
The problem that any verdict in favour of the NPP will cause
cannot be solved because it will be the bursting of an avalanche
of genuine protests against the wrong decision by the Supreme
Court. I am being brazen here to say that the evidence on the
ground doesn’t present this petition as winnable. It will,
therefore, go against the grain for the Supreme Court to fail to
retain the status quo.
Addison himself had a hindsight benefit to acknowledge that no
such petition has ever succeeded in Africa apparently because it
hasn’t passed the test of reality, as expressed by this member
of the Kenyan Supreme Court that dismissed the suit brought by
Raila Odinga against the Kenyan President-elect (Kenyatta) and
the Electoral Commission:
“If you want to win an election, win it at the ballot box. Do
not come to court. Why should 14 million Kenyans be put through
that problem (registration and voting), then you want six or
seven people to decide. Who are we?”
Furthermore, Akufo-Addo himself made it clear that it is votes
that count at elections: “Elections are about those who cast
votes, not those who count, not those who supervise, not those
who transmit and not those who declare. It is the casting of the
ballot that is sacred, God-given right of a citizen casting his
or her ballot. The rest of the activities are at best,
administrative duties”—Nana Akuffo-Addo (Dec. 28, 2012).
So, what is there for the petitioners to claw at except the
straw that they have mistaken for substance?
The long duration taken by the hearing itself should send
alarming signals to the petitioners that they will lose the
case. Clearly, eight months after being declared winner of
Election 2012 and installed in office according to
constitutional provisions, President Mahama has already
consolidated his hold on power. It will not be easy divesting
him of that power; and the Supreme Court’s taking so long to
conclude this case is a clear manifestation that what is written
is written.
There are too many more contentious issues that don’t favour the
petitioners. They know that they are wobbling an Countdown to
Judgement Day (Part V) Countdown to Judgement Day (Part V)
Countdown to Judgement Day (Part V)d hobbling toward a more
severe disgraceful moment; but are as usual holding themselves
out in public, engaging in useless deeds of derring-do and
daring everybody to take them on. In the end, Fate will seal
their doom.
We will leave them to stew in their own self-fulfilling
prophecies and laugh their hearts out for now. But they will
come to the painful realization on August 29 that all along,
they've been laughing at the wrong side of their mouths.
I shall return…
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Related article:
NPP Petition: Countdown to
Judgement Day (Part IV)
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