You didn’t do your homework – NPP rejects Mahama call for audit
The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has downplayed the calls by former President John Dramani Mahama for an independent audit of the 2020 results released by the Electoral Commission (EC).
The flagbearer of the opposition NDC has rejected the results cited manipulation of figures but is yet to present the full evidence of the claims.
General Secretary of the NPP, John Boadu, questioned why “all of a sudden we are hearing about auditing”.
“Where does this place in our political arrangements? Instead of you to do your work by independently collating your results, you are shirking the responsibilities. Where in our democracy does this fit into?” he criticised Mr Mahama.
President Nana Akufo-Addo’s votes increased from 6, 730, 413 to 6, 730, 587 a difference of 174 with the percentage also rising from 51.295% to 51.302%comparing an oral presentation of the official election results by EC Chair Jean Mensa and a subsequent press release correcting some “inadvertent” mistakes.
For former President Mahama, his total reduced from 6, 214, 889 to 6, 213, 182, a difference of 1,707. This resulted in a reduction of his percentage from 47.366% to 47.359%.
The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) also released a report in which they said the EC results did not differ significantly from the tally of election observers.
Initial assessments from observer missions from the EU, AU, and ECOWAS have said the elections were free and fair.
Mr Boadu, who addressed a press conference on Tuesday, December 15 maintained that: “Nana Akufo-Addo won the elections with a huge margin. It is a huge feat. The difference between the two candidates was 517,231 so the presidential elections were not even close, so there was nothing contentious about it in the first place. I think it is better for him to come to terms with his loss. He lost by a huge margin and he should just accept it.”
He was responding to an interview with the Voice of America’s (VOA) Peter Clottey in which Mr Mahama said the just-ended polls was “the most incompetent elections we’ve had. I mean, everything about this election does not reach the standards that Ghana’s Electoral Commission has attained for itself”.
He argued that it would “be useful for us to do a forensic audit of the EC’s own systems and the numbers to come to what the final number for the EC is because as of now, I don’t know what number they are going to gazette.”
According to him, there were “deliberate attempts to subvert the will of the people in favour of the incumbent”.