Election Petition: Details of What Happened Today

The election petition case in which three leading members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), as petitioners, are seeking to nullify the declaration of President John Mahama as the winner of the 2012 election has been adjourned to April 22, 2013.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, once again, was in the witness box where he was initially questioned by lead counsel for the petitioners, Philip Addison.

Lawyer for President Mahama, Tony Lithur then cross examined him for over two hours about the evidence the petitioners had presented to the courts before the hearing.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia was seeking in his submission to have the court annul about 4.3 million votes which he said would reduce President Mahama’s percentage in the election to about 40% while boosting Nana Akufo Addo’s percentage to 50.47%.

Tony Lithur however in cross examinations sought to point out to Dr Bawumia that per the evidence presented to the court, several of the data from the pink sheets had been duplicated.

Below is a timeline of activities as they happened in court

16:10 – There is no duplication. No matter hard you try, you will not be able to show duplication, Dr Bawumia tells Tony Lithur

15:10 – Cross examination continues

14:25 – One of the Justices of the Supreme court hearing the election petition calls on Lawyer Tony Lithur to consider his continued referencing of the evidence provided because in his opinion, if his (Tony Lithur) aim is to disprove the figures provided by the petitioner.

Tony Lithur disagrees and says it is crucial he continues because it will help disprove the substantial basis of the position of the petitioners.

14:10 – Hearing resumes in the Supreme Court with Lawyer Tony Lithur putting questions to Dr Bawumia about the evidence submitted by petitioners.

The Supreme Court hearing the election petition takes a lunch break after several minutes of cross examination.

Court resumes at 14:00 GMT

13:10 – Dr Bawumia puts it to Tony Lithur that the pink sheets have not been duplicated.

13:05 – This is not a football match, where supporters cheer or hoot – One of the Justices declares in court

12:45 – Dr Bawumia says (paraphrasing) “You have received the same pink sheet twice but those pink sheets have not been used twice in the analysis.”

Cross examination continues with Tony Lithur putting questions to Dr Bawumia on the evidence submitted to the courts by the petitioners.

12:38 – Lawyer Addison requests for the court to allow his client to refresh his memory using the data from the CD ROM

12:25 – Lawyer Tony Lithur puts it to Dr Bawumia that data from the same polling station has been duplicated for another area per the evidence brought before the court.

12:17 – Cross examination begins with Lawyer Tony Lithur. Questions Dr. Bawumia on the number of pink sheets submitted to the courts.

12:15 – Dr Bawumia says petitioners pray that Supreme Court rules that John Mahama was not validly elected as President of the Republic.

He notes that Nana Akufo Addo was validly elected as President after the elections per the information and evidence provided.

The Supreme Court has overruled the objection raised by Tony Lithur with support from Quarshie Idun and Tsatsu Tsikata to the tendering of documents by Dr Bawumia.

Lawyer Addison demands apology over what he terms “false accusations”. Judges ask him to leave it at that.

11:30 – Lawyer Philip Addison argues that the evidence was requested for by the respondents and will “greatly assist” the court in work.

Tony Lithur and Tsatsu Tsikata however object to the tendering of the documents. Tony Lithur insists that it is prejudicial.

11:15 – Lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata says “The documents being sort to be tendered at this stage contradict the documents that this witness on oath submitted to this court.

This is in support of Lawyer Tony Lithur’s objection to the documents being tendered as evidence by Dr Bawumia.

11:06 – Dr Bawumia tenders new documents as evidence to the court

11:00 – Dr Bawumia does some analysis of what the effects of deductions of votes will be if the some of the constitutional and statutory violations including over voting, voting without biometric verification and cases where there were no signatures, are considered.

10:53 – Dr Bawumia says total number of votes we are seeking to have annuled is 4,381, 415

10:28 – Dr Bawumia contends that the situation where there are two booklets and duplicate serial numbers and there is an attempt at rationalizing it, is unfortunate.

He adds that it cannot be the case that pink sheets were printed before filing of nominations was done.

He questions, if you expected more people to file why did you print the exact number of booklets for both phases.

He further contends that we (petitioners) submitted 51 duplicates. One set were described as twins. The other 50 are not twins. They say they are errors. Two names are on the register, everything is the same except the ID number?

Dr Bawumia notes that the evidence that we have on the pink sheets indicates that indeed people did vote without biometric verification.

10:22 – If you expected more people to file for the election, why did you print the exact number of booklets – Dr Bawumia questions

10:18 – Dr Bawumia gets things underway at the Supreme Court where he is leading evidence on issues surrounding special.

Background
Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia is expected to mount the witness stand again on Thursday at the Supreme Court, when hearing on the election petition contesting the declaration of President Mahama as winner of the 2012 election, resumes.

On Wednesday, the second petitioner, Dr. Bawumia led evidence in areas such as over voting and voting without biometric verification.

According to him, some Presiding officers of the Electoral Commission failed to sign pink sheets before declaring results as required by law.

He claimed that there were irregularities and violations in the areas which recorded large use of duplicate serial numbers on polling station forms.

Led by counsel Philip Addison, Dr. Bawumia prayed the courts to annul the votes in the identified areas where these irregularities took place.

Meanwhile, Citi News has stumbled upon the Affidavit Evidence presented by the NDC’s main witness, Johnson Asiedu Nketia.

On the issues Dr. Bawumia raised about voting without biometric verification, Mr. Asiedu Nketia responded by stating that:

“I have also been advised by Counsel and believe that biometric verification cannot be restricted to fingerprint verification and that if as a result of equipment failure, any voting occurred without a voter having undergone fingerprint verification but the voter was otherwise verified in terms of the biometric register, this was not wrongful.”