17TH To 17TH - A Timeline On The Election Petition (Part I)

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Tuesday, 23 July 2013 00:00

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17TH To 17TH - A Timeline On The Election Petition (Part I)

{sidebar id=11 align=right}The Presidential Election Petition, after almost seven months of arguments, discussions, pink sheets and various applications, came to an end on Wednesday 17th July, 2013. It has undoubtedly been a period of rich history and landmark events which we would obviously keep talking about over and over.

On December 7th, 2012 Ghanaians went to the polls to elect a President and 275 Members of Parliament.

As usual there was excitement in the air.

For those of us in the NPP, December 7th had finally come after 4 years of hard work which had seen our Presidential candidate almost relentless in his efforts to sell the message of the NPP in every single community in our country.

The NPP was coming on the back of a bitter defeat in the 2008 General elections, having lost the Presidency by less than 40,000 votes after two rounds of voting and there was an obvious determination on all sides within the party to do everything humanely possible to reclaim the Presidency.

From where I stand, my boss, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia had undertaken a vigorous eight month campaign across the length and breadth of the country. Starting from his famous State of the Economy Speech in which he tackled the basics of the Ghanaian economy and how low the NDC administration had sunk it despite the very favourable economic conditions it had inherited and prevailing favourable external sector conditions, he had undertaken to take the bull by the horns and battle for every single vote he could possibly win for the New Patriotic Party and Nana Akufo-Addo, his Presidential Candidate who had demonstrated utmost confidence in this young and well recognized brilliant economist and thinker.

Not a single region went untouched in the eight months, though it is evident that the most concentration was in the three Northern Regions and to an extent the Brong Ahafo Region.

Then fast forward to December. After a well fought campaign, Dr. Afari Gyan, like he had done in 2008, announced the NDC as winners despite strong complaints from Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP and rather ordered the NPP to go to court if indeed we had any case.

In 2012 though, Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP decided to take the challenge serious.

A team was immediately assembled to meticulously gather and analyze the records of the election and identify if any, the irregularities that bogged the election and indeed it didn’t take long for it to be very obvious that the election had been choked with unprecedented irregularities and violations from head to toe. No region or district or constituency had been spared.

But the systematic and widespread nature of the irregularities made the work more difficult and not less easy.

This team of mainly young men and women of various backgrounds, led by the Vice Presidential candidate of the party, had to first of all try as much as possible to gather all the primary records, the Pink sheets, from over 26,000 polling stations and then enter these records one by one into soft formats (simply computers for those who dread the word ‘soft’) after which various tests and analysis had to be constantly made to find the full scale of what happened on Friday, December 7th, 2012.

But outside the real work, was also the work of political propagandists who sang to the high heavens the frivolousness of the NPPs intent to go to court. “The to be petitioners had no case,” “they just couldn’t come to terms with defeat,” “they would end up being thrown out of the courts” etc. etc.. Some even went as short as saying that no petition would be submitted. All the talk about going to court was going to end on radio and in the other media forms.

Others professed more love for the NPP than the leaders of the party by asking the party to forget about seeking justice and to do what they called “reorganization” as that was much more important.

But for the millions who believed their mandate had rightfully been stolen, it was a relentless contribution in terms of ideas, prayers and support for the task the National Council had ordained; they could not wait for the petition to be filed and every day that went past without filing only increased anxiety.

Finally, however, on the morning of December 28th, the petition was filed but that was really, just the beginning.

It was months of sleepless nights and indeed continued to be throughout the hearings, for those who were involved. It was months of hard work and months of getting ‘pinked’ and months of getting to learn things about the electoral system and how it was compromised in 2012.

But on the road from the filing of the petition to the commencement of the substantive case, there was one difficult spot to forget, where easily all the hard work could have ended for the man who later became the star witness for the petitioners.

MARCH 17th Bole - Bamboi

That was a weekend. The party had arranged a series of regional stopovers during which party executives and leading members had to be informed of the progress of the case and had to be informed, in part, about the real evidence supporting the petition.

The day before was a Saturday. Party faithful had been informed in Bolga and Tamale of the work that had so far been done and they were visibly excited.

But this particular day was a Sunday. A normal bright Sunday which happened to have fallen on a 17th of March. On the plains between Bole and Bamboi, returning from the installation of the new Bole-wura, with the National Chairman of the Party’s vehicle as the lead car, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s vehicle as second and the security vehicle as third car in the convoy. A few minutes after 1pm (I’m sure), a loud blast is heard. Two tires on the same side of Dr. Bawumia’s vehicle get burst simultaneously. The vehicle skids of the road, three or four sommersaults and then a very heavy landing – a car damaged beyond repair, four shocked occupants who have just stared death in the eyes and who cannot believe how merciful God has been to them this particular afternoon, wailing occupants of the other vehicles in the convoy who instantly believe lives have been lost in the accident vehicle - is the unforgettable sight.

Miraculously, and on the face value, all that was suffered was some bruises, dislocated bones and serious body pains.

What follows is a drive to Kumasi and an uncertainty of what internal damage might have been caused by the near fatal accident, but thankfully everybody escapes without major injuries and to only God would glory and honour forever be.

The recovery had to take less than 2 weeks because after all recovery or not, there was still unfinished business to be done. The petition and the evidence had to be rounded up for the soon to commence unprecedented and landmark Presidential Election Petition.

Within the space of two weeks after March 17th, the Supreme Court of Ghana, faced with potentially its biggest case in its existence, settles all the brouhaha on the issues to be determined by the court and limits it to two: a. were there irregularities and b. if there were, did they affect the outcome of the elections?

No one could have simplified the whole petition better than what our nine eminent Justices did. Most importantly too, the date for the commencement of the substantive case was announced. April 16th!!!!

APRIL 16

For whatever my hausa is worth, I know “Doole Doole” means “surely surely” and surely the 16th of April was upon us. But before the 16th was the 15th. Monday 15th April, when everybody had given up and accepted their fates of having to be at the mercy of propaganda PHD holders and world acknowledged grand masters, the nation was pleasantly surprised. The Chief Justice and the Judiciary had finally agreed and sanctioned the live broadcast of the Presidential Election Petition and indeed to borrow one of the most cheapened phrases – plans were far advanced to give us the live telecast just the next day.

So the 16th came, the lawyers were in court, the judges were fully present, the petitioners were there and so were the respondents and their representatives including till then, the much sought after Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan, the man who kept daring political operatives to go to court. That day, he also came to court and has been there ever since.

But the Electoral Commission, the constitutionally mandated body to organize the election, the body which had had all the documents relating to the election in their custody for many months were not ready with their response, so the court adjourned till the next day for ‘proper action’ to begin.

To be continued....................

Source: Boadu Kwabena

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Ghana Wails for Justice, Security and Progress

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Category: Religion

Created on Sunday, 21 July 2013 00:00

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Ghana Wails for Justice, Security and Progress

...As the 9-member panel Supreme Court Justices in the ongoing presidential election petition temporarily retire for the reconsideration of [counter] claims, evidence, the law and the policy

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Ghana cedi sinks to low as state-owned shares fall on vote trial

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Category: Business & Finance

Created on Tuesday, 23 July 2013 00:00

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Ghana cedi sinks to low as state-owned shares fall on vote trial

{sidebar id=11 align=right}By Moses Mozart Dzawu & Ekow Dontoh

Ghana’s cedi is sinking to record lows and shares of state-run companies are falling on prospects that Ghana’s Supreme Court will cancel President John Dramani Mahama’s election win and put at risk an improving economy.

“If there’s going to be another election, what is going to happen to the fiscal situation?” Stuart Culverhouse, London-based chief economist at Exotix Ltd., said by phone on July 19. “I don’t think people are going to be thinking about whether there’s going to be any unrest or volatility. People are more concerned about what that means for economic stability.”

Yields on Ghana’s dollar-denominated bonds due in 2017 barely budged after scuffles among security forces and opposition protesters broke out following 54-year-old Mahama’s victory in December and the debt is outperforming emerging-market securities this year. The Supreme Court is considering a challenge by opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo, 69, who said the vote was marred by counting abnormalities. Testimony in the three-month trial ended on July 17 and lawyers have until July 30 to submit last arguments.

The cedi fell to a record low on July 19 and is Africa’s worst performer against the dollar this month after Kenya’s shilling. Three of the biggest decliners on the Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index (GGSECI) this month have the government among their top two shareholders.

The Finance Ministry forecasts Ghana’s budget deficit, which ballooned last year to about triple the level of the year before, will narrow in 2013 and the $41 billion economy will expand 8 percent from 7.9 percent growth in 2012. Output shrank a quarterly 3.1 percent in the first three months of the year from a 2.1 percent expansion in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Stockpile Dollars

The cedi gained 0.5 percent to 2.055 per dollar by 2:24 p.m. yesterday in Accra, paring its depreciation this year to 7.3 percent. The currency may drop to between 2.1 per dollar and 2.2 per dollar in the next six months as investors and companies continue to stockpile dollars, Kofi Pianim, a bond trader at the Ghanaian unit of Standard Bank Group Ltd., said by phone on July 17.

“Importers are buying dollars ahead of time and investors are also holding on to dollars as a precautionary measure,” he said. “It’s driving the cedi weaker.”

Deputy Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson declined to comment on the effect of the court case on the currency in an interview on July 19.

Deficit Widened

As post-election protests broke out, yields on Ghana’s $750 million Eurobonds rose one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 4.96 percent on Dec. 12, a day after Akufo-Addo told a rally of supporters he would dispute the results in court. Yields on the debt due October 2017 retreated 20 basis points yesterday to 5.68 percent by 5:20 p.m. in London. The yields have climbed 80 basis points this year, compared with a 113 basis-point increase in emerging-market bonds, JPMorgan Chase & Co. data show.

“The trial inspired confidence in Ghana’s democracy, but there are concerns about how the outcome of the trial will be handled,” said Kissy Agyeman-Togobo, Accra-based analyst with Songhai Advisory LLP. “There are questions about how Ghana’s security will be managed after the court’s ruling.”

Ghana’s budget deficit jumped to 12.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2012 from 4.3 percent the previous year as the government boosted salaries for civil servants. The Finance Ministry is forecasting the gap will narrow to 9 percent this year. In the first four months of 2013, the shortfall was 3.8 percent of GDP, compared with a forecast of 3 percent, the central bank said in May.

The deficit on the nation’s current account, the broadest measure of trade in goods and services, widened to 12.3 percent of GDP last year from 9 percent in 2011, according to the Bank of Ghana. It may narrow to 11.3 percent this year, according to the Finance Ministry.

Contested Papers

South Africa’s budget deficit is forecast to narrow to 4.6 percent of GDP in the 2013-14 fiscal year, according to the Finance Ministry in the continent’s biggest economy, from 6.3 percent in the previous period, Reserve Bank figures show. The current-account gap is expected to be 6.2 percent of GDP, compared with a 6.1 percent shortfall last year.

“There is an element of nervousness,” Randy Mensah, a stock trader at Ecobank Development Corp., said by phone on July 16. “The Supreme Court decision could lead to a rerun of the December 2012 elections or a change in government.”

The court hearing, which began in April, included weeks of testimony from Akufo-Addo’s vice presidential candidate, former Bank of Ghana Deputy Governor Mahamudu Bawumia, and Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, head of the Electoral Commission, as they poured through contested papers from thousands of polling stations, with the trial broadcast daily on television and radio.

Final Hearing

The pending decision prompted investors to sell shares in companies where the government holds major stakes, Mensah said. “The heads and boards of the companies can change if the court’s ruling should lead to a change in government.”

Ghana Oil Co., which runs gasoline stations and is 51 percent owned by the government, posted the biggest decline on the Accra bourse this month, falling 31 percent. PBC Ltd., the biggest purchaser of cocoa from farmers in the country with the state and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust pension fund holding a combined 75 percent, is down 8.3 percent. SIC Insurance Co., the country’s largest insurer, retreated 7 percent. The government holds 40 percent of SIC.

Ghana Oil Managing Director Patrick Akorli didn’t answer two calls made to his mobile phone on July 19 and two calls made yesterday. SIC Chairman Max Cobbinah was in a meeting and couldn’t comment, according to a company official who answered the phone at his office on July 19. Doris Awo-Nkani, SIC’s managing director, was in a meeting, a company official who answered the phone at her office, said yesterday.

“Whichever way the decision of the court goes does not matter to PBC,” Kojo Atta-Krah, PBC’s managing director, said by phone yesterday. “PBC is a public listed company. I’ve seen government come to understand what that means.”

The court adjourned until July 31, Justice William Atuguba said during proceedings. The judges have 15 days to announce their decision after the final hearing, Sam Okudzeto, a former president of the Ghana Bar Association, said by phone.

Source: Bloomberg

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17TH To 17TH – A Timeline On The Election Petition (II)

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Sunday, 21 July 2013 00:00

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17TH To 17TH – A Timeline On The Election Petition (II)

{sidebar id=11 align=right}This is the second in a three part series on the events in the Presidential Election Petition Hearings as observed by the writer.

April 17th - You and I were not there

And so exactly a month after March 17th when his life was saved by Allah, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia took the witness stand in the landmark case as the star witness for the petitioners. He had been tasked to present and defend the case of the petitioners before the nine justices and a nation of 25 million who had all rightfully become judges and legal luminaries in their own right overnight.

So Dr. Bawumia was in the witness box. He explained generally why the petitioners were in court and for the first time presented to the nation the full unadulterated case of the petitioners. And made a compelling case for why the Pink Sheets, which are the primary records of the election, must ultimately be relied upon in determining the two vital issues at stake.

Pink Sheets have reigned ever since.

On over-voting, he stated the two basic definitions: (1) where the ballot papers in the ballot box were more than the registered voters at the particular polling station and (2) where the ballot papers in the ballot box were more than the number of people who were issued ballots after voting ends.

He noted the importance of the ballot accounting section on the Pink Sheet and the need for it to be religiously filled at the defined times according to the laws of the EC so as to protect the integrity of the process and noted that irregularities are evident if they are left blank or when they are inconsistent with the other records on other sections of the form.

On voting without biometric verification, he stated very clearly the law as contained in C.I 75 which required everyone to vote only after being properly verified by the biometric device and the general consensus of all parties involved in the election to follow the law strictly. Till then, a lot of noise had been made on radio quoting all sorts of authorities and some even denying that biometric verification was mandatory per the law. Luckily, that noise was kept out of the court as all the witnesses who later took the stand agreed that verification was mandatory.

Dr. Bawumia informed us of the critical C3 section, which the EC had apparently placed on the pink sheet to allow some voters with ID cards to vote without biometric verification and which ended up exposing the number of people in over 2,000 polling stations who were allowed to vote without being verified.

Then he revealed probably for the first time, the fact that the EC had annulled a number of polling stations on December 7th as a result of over voting and voting without biometric verification.

Interestingly, the EC confessed that it was not aware of these annulments and that it took the petitioners to inform them almost 5 months after the Election.

He stated the case for annulling votes recorded on pink sheets which had not been authenticated by the Presiding officers, in clear breach of Article 49 of the 1992 4th Republican constitution, and how that violation easily compromises the integrity of the poll.

He touched on Duplicate Serial numbers and explained to the court how the phenomenon of same pink sheet serial numbers became so widespread in the election and how that compromised the integrity of the election and the results. He identified serial numbers as the critical identifiers of the pink sheet which was the only identifier to come pre-embossed and how duplicates made it possible to compromise the results.

And then we got to know how duplicate serial numbers were closely and very highly linked to the three other irregularities and how that was the vehicle in which all the other irregularities were carried to their final destination of affecting the outcome of the poll.

Finally, the voters’ register was brought under the spotlight and the many issues with our first biometric register on which we spent hundreds of millions of Ghana cedis were brought to the fore.

CROSS EXAMINATION

Then followed cross examination on the 18th April. First was Tony Lithur, counsel for the declared winner of the December Election, John Mahama.

He lasted three days. Mainly concentrating on clear mislabelling and duplication of exhibits and introducing his own unique brand of justifications which he called “administrative errors” to justify the irregularities evidenced on the face of the pink sheets.

Towing the same line was James Quarshie - Idun, the ECs lawyer who spent less than three days. He concentrated on the election process and also introduced his brand of errors, the long grain “clerical and trans-positional errors” to justify the evidence on the face of the pink sheets.

And then the well acclaimed NDC legal Maradona, Messi and Pele all rolled into one, Tsatsu Tsikata, took the floor and rendered a cross examination which seemed unending and which rekindled the dreams of many that the trial would last for at least a decade or worse before a determination.

In cross examination did phrases like “you and I were not there”, “the evidence is on the face of the pink sheet”, “the errors should not affect somebody’s presidency”, “it doesn’t affect the analysis” etc. originate.

In cross examination, the main witness of the petitioners who grew more comfortable after each day in the box defended the claims of the petitioners steadfastly.

On over voting, he used the cross examination to show the judges and the nation how important the ballot accounting section was and exposed to the world how some over voting had been hidden in the total number of votes in the ballot box but how summing up the various votes accredited to the candidates, which eventually went into the declaration, exposed the over voting. To do this, he had to rely on the generous help of the counsels for the respondents especially Tony Lithur and Tsatsu Tsikata who presented various pink sheets which ostensibly had no over voting but which actually did, only that it was hidden to the eyes of the lawyers.

On voting without biometric verification, he defended why it was important for the law to be followed in all polling stations and why the records contained in section C3 were the true indicators of the number of people who voted without verification.

Variously, lawyers of the respondents sought to suggest that there were exceptions to the law and cited our brothers and sisters with no fingers or those whose fingerprints could not be captured as a result of what the EC called temporary trauma and who were all classified as “Face Only (FO) voters” as examples of such exceptions. But Dr Bawumia who had demonstrated high knowledge of the electoral system disagreed and stated also severally that even the FOs were known to the biometric machine and were verified automatically by the machine, something which was later confirmed by the Electoral Commission’s Boss.

While the respondents tried to push forcefully the point that polling agents were principal actors in the elections and had actually certified the results of the elections, the petitioners’ witness insisted that they were exalted observers and that what they did was only to attest to the record on the pink sheets, some of which included the evidence of various irregularities.

May 7th

I have to dedicate a paragraph or at least a line for May 7th. May 7th was an interesting day in court. His highly esteemed Tsatsu ‘Maradona’ Tsikata who had spent days arguing against the case of the petitioners and trying to punch pinholes into their argument, suddenly sprang up new pink sheets from strongholds of the petitioners. His point was simple. The petitioners were hypocrites - all the irregularities they were making ‘ugly’ noises about also occurred in the strongholds of the petitioners.

For the petitioners, this had settled completely the first issue for determination (i.e. whether there were irregularities) as the respondents by their action had accepted the case of irregularities and even proceeded to attempt to back their new stance with evidence. As smart and witty as he continued to be in the witness box, Dr. Bawumia gladly urged the NDC to apply and become co-petitioners in the case as they were now on the same page as the original petitioners.

But generally compared to the energy and time spent on mislabelling and duplications in the exhibits filed by the petitioners, the respondents spent much, much less energy and very, very little time challenging the real substance of the case presented by the petitioners.

We remember a profusely sweating lawyer who was cross examining a calm witness, the tendering of letters supposedly delivered before they were written and the evidence of serious arithmetic challenges on the part of the legal Maradona who was obviously a mathematical Tahiti bench warmer plus a lot more.

May 16 - Criminality

Mr. Tsikata’s cross examination which went on and on effectively ended on May 16th. But unwilling to leave the stage yet, he conjured two more days on tendering various lists on duplications and few other over flogged issues.

But before May 16th was May 9th – the remembrance of the 127 lives that perished at the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium on the day over a decade ago. But in the Supreme Court, this was also the day a decision was finally made to order an audit of the pink sheets filed and KPMG was tasked with this job.

Exactly a week later on May 16th, another very important ruling was made by the court which went a long way to bringing finality to case.

The Court ruled against the respondents to prevent calling new witnesses of the petitioners, about 5 in all. According to Justice William Atuguba, the court already had enough evidence on which it could effectively make a determination.

With this ruling, it meant that after Dr. Bawumia, there were only two more witnesses left for the hearings to end.

Also, KPMG began its work on May 16th with a preparatory inspection of the exhibits in the custody of the registry, in the company of the representatives of all the parties in the case.

However, another twist which obviously needs to be here is how the respondents threatened to boycott a count they had asked for and how the respondents angrily stormed into court alleging that, by some grand conspiracy, the National Security and Police officers who had for some weeks provided 24 hour round the clock security, had over slept and allowed some unscrupulous beings to breach also the CCTV surveillance and sneak in with over 7 large boxes of pink sheets.

Their evidence was the fact that an inventory taken by KPMG on Thursday May 16th showed that the boxes in the custody of the registry totalled 24 but that by this grand scheme, the boxes had inflated to 31.

Allegations of criminality were thrown about everywhere but really that was all it was, hot air. KPMG later confirmed both outside and in court that it had not taken any such inventory. From all indications, the boxes only increased in the imaginations of some people.

Dr. Bawumia’s time in the box finally ended on May 22nd when he was re-examined by lead Counsel for the petitioners, Philip Addison.

To be continued ...............

Source: Boadu Kwabena

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