Director of Elections of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, has defended the party’s legal team’s decision not to present pink sheets during the 2020 election petition hearing.
According to him, John Mahama’s legal team was strategising based on the actions of the Supreme Court justices who heard the case challenging the declaration of Nana Akufo-Addo as President after December 7, 2020, polls.
“I was in court almost every day, the posture of the court and the fact that consistently on every single issue, there was unanimity even if we had taken all the pink sheets in this world and added Angel Gabriel as a witness with Angel Michael as a technical advisor it will still have been unanimous.
"Unfortunately, that is my view. It appeared as if they had just made up their minds that they were not going to listen to us,†he said on TV3’s Key Points, a current affairs programme, on Saturday, August 28, 2021.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has put forth proposals for electoral reforms following the 2020 election petition verdict that upheld the Electoral Commission’s declaration of Nana Akufo-Addo as President.
The NDC is convinced the Electoral Commission Chair, Jean Mensa, is biased and declared the results in favour of the NPP and Akufo-Addo because she was appointed by the President.
The NDC, as part of electoral reform proposals after the 2020 polls has said the appointment of an EC Chair should go through Parliament.
It also wants the EC to be spilt into two: one mainly responsible for conducting presidential and parliamentary polls and the other responsible for the registration and regulation of political parties.
During a discussion of the NDC’s proposals on Key Points, the host sought to suggest that the NDC and John Mahama’s request was overturned because it did not present convincing witnesses or pink sheet evidence.
Even one of the Supreme Court Justices who sat on the panel that adjudicated the petition, Justice Gertrude Torkonoo, has stated that the NDC and John Mahama was expected to prove their allegations of vote padding by the EC with pink sheets.
But Mr Afriyie Ankrah disagrees.
“We have been to court with the NPP before,†he pointed out in reference to the 2021 election petition filed by Nana Akufo-Addo, his running mate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and the NPP Chairman at the time, the late Jake Obetsebi Lamptey.
“They [2012 Petitioners] brought pink sheets, go and read the judgement of the court, so we [NDC] are not daft. When you are going to court on a case you do your research and you look at what the judges say on various issues and then you build your case based on those precedence so you look at when pick sheets were produced what was the posture of the Supreme Court?†he added to suggest that the posture of the Supreme Court did not warrant John Mahama’s legal team to present pink sheet evidence.