NDC won majority seats in Parliament – Mahama insists

Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in last year’s presidential elections John Dramani Mahama still believes his party won majority seats in the parliamentary edition.

“In the Parliamentary elections, the NDC won majority of seats,” he stressed.

But he claims the party was denied some of its won seats by the “devious manipulation” of officials of the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC).

“In some instances, the manipulation was so glaring and brazen that simple intervention by the leadership of the Electoral Commission as has been done by previous Commissioners could have addressed the issues and righted the wrongs to make court actions completely unnecessary.

“Therefore, it is not surprising that International Election Observers captured collation and tallying of results as one of the challenges of our 2020 elections,” Mr Mahama observed.

He blamed all these on the EC, saying its “posture and approach. . .does not inspire the confidence needed to preside over any transparent, free and fair election”.

The former president expressed these sentiments on Thursday, March 4 when he was reacting to the dismissal of a petition he sent to the Supreme Court to have the results of the presidential polls overturned.

He complained in six reliefs that the declared winner, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, did not garner votes beyond the threshold of 50 percent plus one vote as demanded by Article 63 of the 1992 Constitution.

But the Supreme Court said there was not enough evidence adduced by Mr Mahama in his argument.

Therefore, the seven justices unanimously dismissed the petition.

But Mr Mahama insinuated that the Court only shielded the EC, particularly its Chair, Jean Adukwei Mensa, from being scrutinized by the public.

He demanded the immediate removal of the current leadership of the Commission.

“They have absolutely no reason to remain in office. This is because the Electoral Commission must remain a neutral arbiter and the organizer of elections. They must not hold a vested interest in the dubious victory of one party over another.”

By the official results, the NDC had 137 seats while the New Patriotic Party (NPP), whose presidential candidate won the elections, had 137 seats with one independent seat – Fomena – whose representative is now the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament.

By Emmanuel Kwame Amoh|3news.com|Ghana

Follow @kwame_amoh