Guest Post: Ghana Elections Contested

Guest Post: NPP Petitions Supreme Court
Guest Poster: Julia from Ghana

The Supreme Court will on Thursday, March 14, 2013 hear a petition challenging the legitimacy of President John Mahama.

John Mahama, President of Ghana and flag bearer of the NDC

The Petitioners

The petitioners, Nana Akufo-Addo, his running mate Dr Mahamadu Bawumia and the Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey filed the petition at the highest court of the land praying it to annul votes cast in 11,916 polling stations due to what they termed "gross and widespread irregularities."

They had, in a December 28, 2012 petition, called for the annulment of votes cast in 4,709 polling stations but amended their petition on February 9, 2013 after the court had granted them permission to do so, citing 11,916 polling stations as the total number of polling stations where alleged irregularities were recorded.

The three had initially called for the cancellation of 1,342,845 valid votes cast during the election at 4,709 polling stations due to the alleged irregularities were recorded during the elections. But they are now urging the Supreme Court to pronounce additional 3,327,659 valid votes cast as invalid.

The Supreme Court on February 7, 2013 granted the petitioners their request of amendment, and accordingly allowed it.

December 2012 Campaign Poster of Opposition Leader, Presidential Candidate of the NPP, Akuffo-Addo.

The Respondents

President Mahama, who is the first respondent, the Electoral Commission (EC) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the second and third respondents respectively, have filed their responses.

They have all refuted the petitioners' allegations on the grounds that President Mahama won the elections legitimately in the full glare of the media, local and international election observers.

The NDC applied to join the petition on December 31, 2012 and was duly granted permission by a 6- 3 majority decision of the Supreme Court on January 22, 2013.

Random Julia Thoughts:

Ghana is the beacon of democracy of the African continent. This is one of the reasons why President Obama chose to visit Ghana for his first trip to Sub-Saharan Africa. 

However, the recent election unrest has led me to believe that, perhaps, my country is not the mature democracy I thought it was. I live in Kwashieman, an NPP stronghold in Accra. In the days following the December, 2012 elections, my neighborhood was under a 24 hour police patrol because of NPP protests that had turned violent. These NPP protesters were wreaking havoc in other suburbs as well, some even attacking journalists, causing a news blackout before the official results were released. Yes, this happened in Ghana, ranked number one in press freedom in Africa!

I understand that the NPP have a constitutional right to appeal the election results if they believe they were unfair, however international observers concluded that the elections were indeed free and fair. In fact, international observers produced results declaring that President Mahama had won by an even greater margin than the results the Electoral Commission announced. Given the instability following the elections, I find the propaganda of the NPP unacceptable and blatantly selfish; imagine, the NPP called on its supporters to begin partying before the EC announced the official election results because they would accept nothing but victory! Clearly, they are not mature enough to govern a democracy any time soon.

NDC won, NDC should rule!