By-election: CPP's Candidate Wins Kumbugu Seat

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Category: Politics

Created on Wednesday, 01 May 2013 00:00

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By-election: CPP's Candidate Wins Kumbugu Seat

{sidebar id=10 align=right}The Convention People’s Party (CPP's) candidate Mr. Amadu Moses Yayaya has won the Kumbugu by-election with 13,029 representing 51.80%.

He polled 13,029 representing 51.80%, to beat his closest contender, Alhaji Imoro Yakubu Kakpagu of the NDC.

The Kumbugu seat became vacant after after ECOWAS’ endorsement of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Kumbungu, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni as Secretary General of the Africa Carribean Pacific (ACP) group of states.

By this shocking electoral victory, the CPP now has a single seat on the floor of Parliament.

Source: PEACEFMONLINE.COM

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EC’s ‘answer’ to 791,223 Voters Voting WBV 70,889 Voters Don't Have Fingers

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Tuesday, 30 April 2013 00:00

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EC’s ‘answer’ to 791,223 Voters Voting WBV 70,889 Voters Don't Have Fingers

The principal witness of the petitioners in the ongoing election petition, Mahamudu Bawumia, yesterday shot down claims by the Electoral Commission that the total number of physically challenged people who could not be verified biometrically was 70, 889, insisting that the actual number was 3, 196.

{sidebar id=12 align=right}Counsel for the second respondent, Quarshie Idun, in his cross-examination of the witness had argued that the figures emanating from the petitioners could not be correct and gave the regional breakdown, suggesting to the witness that his figure of 3,196 was wrong.

Mr Quarshie Idun specified that the Western, Central, Greater Accra, Volta and Eastern region had 6, 238; 3, 090; 4, 656; 3, 900 and 3, 087 respectively in terms of voters who were verified by Face Only.

The rest were given as 4, 321 for the Ashanti region; 4, 117 for the Brong Ahafo region; 18,018 for the Northern region; the Upper East region, 18, 319; with 4, 254 for the Upper West.

However, Dr Bawumia averred that the figure of 3,196 was obtained from the copy of the voters register given to the NPP by the EC, stressing that except the EC was dealing with a separate voters register, the one provided the party had the figure of 3,196.

Mr Quashie Idun yesterday continued to face difficulties in his defence of the declaration of John Mahama as winner of the December 2012 presidential election and had to fall on the support of counsels for the 1st and 3rd respondents, Tony Lithur and the National Democratic Congress respectively.

In the last day of his cross-examination of the petitioners’ main witness, counsel for the EC began by attempting to tender in documents in support of his client’s denial that votes were not padded for John Mahama in some selected polling stations.

This attempt to tender in pink and blue sheets (collation forms), however, hit the rocks when lead counsel for the petitioners, Philip Addison, raised an objection and pointed out that the Electoral Commission was tendering in a parliamentary collation sheet with respect to the Atebubu-Amantin constituency in respect of the presidential result.

Counsel Addison also pointed out that the document which the EC claimed was an original document had part of the writing on it in blue ink and other parts in carbon ink, casting doubts about its authenticity.

He also noted that some of the documents were in respect to polling stations which were no longer being challenged by the petitioners.

The objection to the documents saw the EC struggling to defend itself and soliciting help from counsel from the 1st respondent, Tony Lithur, who spent several minutes trying to justify why the EC should be allowed to tender in those documents as they were the official custodians of the documents.

The arguments from the various counsels brought in a number of Judges, including Justice Gbadegbe, Justice Adinyirah, Justice Dotse and Justice Ennin-Yeboah who queried the EC variously on why it was tendering documents on polling stations which were no longer in contention and why it was tendering documents through a witness of the petitioners and not the witness of his client.

The Court eventually ruled that the EC’s counsel could not tender in the documents through the witness and could wait to tender them in through the witness of his client.

Unable to tender in the documents, Counsel Quarshie – Idun proceeded to suggest to Dr Bawumia that there was no polling station where the total votes in the ballot box were more than the voters’ register. This, the witnessed disagreed, stating that there were many instances where that occurred.

Source: thestatesmanonline.com

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ELECTION PETITION: Bawumia Raises Doubt Over Letter

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Category: Elections & Governance

Created on Wednesday, 01 May 2013 00:00

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ELECTION PETITION: Bawumia Raises Doubt Over Letter

{sidebar id=10 align=right}Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the second petitioner on Tuesday raised doubts about a letter tendered by Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, Counsel for NDC purported to have been written and signed by Nana Akufo-Addo, the first petitioner in the ongoing election petition hearing.

Dr Bawumia said though the signature and letter head appeared to be that of the first petitioner, it was curious that a letter written on December 5, 2012 would be received by the Electoral Commission (EC) on December 3, 2012.

He raised the suspicion when Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, Counsel for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) continued his cross-examination of the witness on the ninth day of hearing.

Dr Bawumia said there was inconsistency with the date on the letter received by the returning officers and that the petitioners had asked the EC to explain the contradiction.

He said he was not initially aware of the presence of the letter but his attention was later drawn to it, adding that there was something interesting about the letter.

Earlier, Mr Tsikata asked the witness whether CI 75 provided for what happened when there was a breakdown of the verification machine. Dr Bawumia answered and said he was aware that when a machine breaks down, voting must stop and the machine replaced.

Mr Tsikata also asked if the “no verification no vote” saying by the witness and the petitioners meant that people should not be allowed to vote if their hands had not been passed through the verification machine. He added that there were several other processes of verifying a voter so the understanding of the law by the witness was flawed.

Dr Bawumia said per the instruction by the EC, which had been clearly emphasized in the CI 75, one would have to pass through all the processes of verification, including biometric verification before voting.

He named two polling stations in the northern region where the entire results were annulled because two people did not go through the process of biometric verification.

Dr Bawumia further explained by saying that even by law, disabled persons still have to be biometrically verified.

Mr Tsikata asked the witness if the terms of reference of the Committee set up to investigate the alleged irregularities, was to ensure that the first petitioner becomes the president.

Dr Bawumia said the Committee was to ensure that there was justice to all Ghanaians.

Mr Tsikata asked again if it was the wish of the Committee members to make the first petitioner, President and he Dr Bawumia the vice president.

Dr Bawumia said he did not asked members of the Committee whether it was their wish to make Nana Addo President and him the Vice President.

Mr Tsikata also asked the witness that as the Chairman of that committee did he give directive to his members to pick out everything in C3 and use that as evidence of irregularity. He further asked how the witness came about with irregularity on the alleged duplication of serial numbers.

Dr Bawumia said they had knowledge on the various irregularities and so they coded the irregularities and the computer did the rest.

Mr Tsikata picked another set of pink sheet exhibits for further cross examination and said on those pink sheets there were no exhibit numbers and asked the witness if it was a mistake on the part of the petitioners.

Dr Bawumia conceded but said it might be a problem for the Commissioner of Oath.

Mr Tsikata said it might well be an error and that human beings are fallible.

Dr Bawumia insisted that though human beings could make mistake that was different from violations of the law.

Tsikata also presented to the court several other pink sheet exhibits in which some spaces for exhibit numbers have been left blank, others have been filled; some left unstamped by the Commissioner of Oath. He then asked Dr Bawumia what accounted for the anomaly.

Dr Bawumia said the exhibit numbers were generated electronically and manually, adding that those that have not been labeled and unstamped were supposed to have been done by the Commissioner of Oath.

Mr Tsikata further presented a list of pink sheets exhibits for the witness to check and to confirm if they were mislabeled.

Dr Bawumia confirmed they were mislabeled but insisted that they were entered once in their analysis of evidence.

After an hour recess, Mr Tsikata continued with his cross examination and brought out a new set of pink sheet exhibits and asked witness if he could confirm that two of the pink sheets were from the same polling station.

Dr Bawumia confirmed they were separate pink sheets from the same polling station.

Mr Tsikata asked the witness if it was a mistake that the exhibits did not have the stamp of the Commissioner of Oath.

Dr Bawumia said if that was what was supposed to happen then it was a mistake.

Mr Tsikata then asked if any of the petitioners were present when the Commissioner of Oath was packaging the exhibits and whether or not they saw all the exhibits being tendered.

Dr Bawumia said the other two petitioners were not present when the exhibits were being packed by the Commissioner of Oath but insisted they looked through every single pink sheet before they were tendered.

Mr Tsikata also asked the witness if he admitted that there was an error in not filling the space for the labeling of pink sheets exhibits.

Dr Bawumia admitted it was an error but ironically said those errors must not affect "somebody's presidency."

Mr Tsikata presented another list of pink sheet exhibits to be checked by the witness.

At that juncture, Mr Philip Addison, Counsel for the petitioners raised an objection and said the exhibit being tendered by the counsel of the third respondent was struck out in the amended petition and so counsel could not ask the witness questions on exhibits that were no longer before the court.

Mr Justice William Atuguba, the Presiding judge upheld the objection and asked Mr Tsikata to find other ways to continue his cross-examination.

Case adjourned to the Thursday May 2, 2013.

Source: GNA

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Irregularities affected elections in every corner of country - Bawumia

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Category: Politics

Created on Sunday, 28 April 2013 00:00

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EC in an affidavit scandal in Gambaga

Irregularities affected elections in every corner of country - Bawumia

{sidebar id=10 align=right}As part of the evidence and exhibits presented to the Supreme Court of Ghana, the main witness of the petitioners, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia also presented to the Supreme Court in hard copy a geographic representation of the spread of the constitutional, statutory violations and irregularities that he claimed affected the conduct and outcome of the December 7, 2012 General Election.

This map was contained in the powerpoint presentation presented in hardcopy to the judges of the Supreme Court.

According to the 2012 Vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, a glance at the map indicates that indeed, the elections of December 7th were affected hugely by the various irregularities and violations which occurred in various degrees all over the country. Every single region and every one of the 275 constituencies was affected by the multiple forms of irregularities.

He said close to 30% of votes he wants to be annulled as a result of over-voting, comes from the Greater Accra Region. The Volta and Northern Regions follow with almost 15% of all votes to be annulled as a result of over-voting coming from each of the two regions.

The Upper East, Central and Western Regions each account for fewer than 10% of the incidents of over-voting while the Eastern, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and the Upper West Regions each account for fewer than 5% of the incidents of over-voting.

On voting without biometric verification, Dr. Bawumia said almost 20% of the votes that would have to be annulled as a result of this infraction of the law, emanate from the Greater Accra Region, whilst the Volta and Northern Regions each account for under 15% of all the votes to be annulled due to voting without biometric verification.

Just like over-voting, the Upper East, Western and Central Regions each account for under 10% of all votes to be annulled due to this category of irregularity/violation. The remaining four regions namely, Upper West, Brong Ahafo, Ashanti and Eastern each account for under 5% of the votes the petitioners are seeking to be annulled.

Dr. Bawumia maintained, in all the analysis from the 11,138 polling stations the he is requesting the Supreme Court to annul, the Greater Accra region was the region most affected by the irregularities, violations and malpractices during the December 7th elections. As a result, 1,044,532 votes in total would have to be annulled from the region’s total valid votes cast.

Following closely is the Volta Region, from which 550,057 votes would have to be annulled from the total valid votes from the region. The Western and Central Regions follow in that order with 500,485 and 499,270 votes to be annulled respectively.

The Northern, Brong Ahafo and Eastern Regions are next in the queue of regions most affected by the irregularities with 482,288, 399,218 and 301,311 votes needing to be annulled respectively from the three regions.

The Ashanti, Upper West and Upper East Regions, in terms of total numbers, were not spared by the irregularities, though they were the least affected. A total of 266,839 ‘illegal’ votes are to be annulled in the Ashanti region, 200,889 ‘illegal’ votes in Upper West, and 136,526 in Upper East. The analysis of the petitioners, however, paints a different picture if the votes to be annulled are analyzed with respect to the total number of eligible voters in the various regions.

The witness said analysis shows that when compared to the total eligible voters, the Upper West Region was most affected by the irregularities as 55.12% of all potential votes from the region were tainted by the irregularities. The Volta Region, again, placed 2nd with 47.55% of all potential votes from the region tainted and therefore needing to be annulled. The Central, Northern Regions and Greater Accra follow in that order with 40.54%, 38.17% and 37.40% of potential votes from the regions being tainted respectively.

The Western, Brong Ahafo, Upper East, Eastern and Ashanti Regions are the regions which, with respect to the total voters register, recorded the least percentages of irregularities per the analysis of the petitioners.

From: NPP Communications Directorate

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