The Director of Legal Affairs for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Abraham Amaliba, says the corrections to be effected on the party’s election petition won’t affect the substantive matter.
The NDC’s legal team says the party will today, Monday 11th January 2021 effect some changes in their petition.
In the petition, the NDC stated, that the EC was the first respondent and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is the 2nd respondent but erroneously stated in other portion of the petition that it wanted to go into a run-off with the first Respondent instead of the second Respondent .
Speaking in an interview on Atinka FM’s AM Drive with host Ekourba Gyasi, Abraham Amaliba, explained that although the party could have waited and effected the change when the court begins hearing, it finds it important to effect the change before the hearing starts.
He explained that the NDC does not want the legal team of the NPP and the EC to be taken by surprise, hence its decision to effect the change before the commencement of the hearing.
Meanwhile, lawyers for President Akufo-Addo have argued that the election petition filed at the Supreme Court by NDC presidential candidate, John Mahama is full of weak and inconsistent complaints and must be dismissed.
According to Akufo-Addo, Mahama’s petition failed to disclose any attack on the validity of of the election held throughout all the polling station across the country.
“The election petition does not disclose any attack on the validity of the election held throughout the 38,622 polling stations and 311 special voting centres or any of the processes set out in the paragraphs 3 and 4 (supra).
In point of fact, Petitioner only devotes an overwhelming portion of the petition(30 out of 35 paragraphs) to weak and inconsistent complaints about the “declaration of the winner” of the election by 1st Respondent, and the remaining five(5) paragraphs to empty allegations of “wrong aggregation of votes” and “votes padding,” which collectively involve about 6,622 votes- an amount patently insignificant to materially affect the outcome of an election in which 2nd respondent defeated Petitioner by we’ll over 500,000 votes” paragraph 5&6 of the president’s response states.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Vivian Adu Boatemaa
