The co-founder and Executive Director of Afrobarometer, Prof. Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi has described as unsurprising, the Supreme Court’s judgment in the 2020 Election Petition case filed by former President, John Dramani Mahama.
Mr. Gyimah-Boadi on Citi TV’s Point of View argued that it was expected that Mr. Mahama’s case will be dismissed, given that it lacked merit as suggested by Justices of the court.
“I did not believe the NDC had a case right from the beginning so I am not surprised by the outcome,” he said.
He was however quick to add that the justices of the court failed to give Ghanaians clarity on the case by preventing the Electoral Commission (EC) chairperson, Jean Mensa from publicly accounting to Ghanaians.
“I was disappointed that the court failed to take advantage, to take the opportunity to interrogate the decisions and basis of those decisions by the EC and maybe help to put to rest some questions that other members of the public and observers may have had,” he told host of the show, Bernard Avle.
Three months after intense trial, the Supreme Court on Thursday, March 4, 2021, ruled that the 2020 Election petition filed by John Dramani Mahama was unmeritorious.
The Justices of the Court explained that the petition was incompetent, lacked merit, and raised no reasonable cause of action because the petitioner failed to prove his case via his petition or through his witnesses.
John Mahama who represented the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the polls went to court insisting that none of the nine presidential candidates obtained the mandatory 50%+1 vote constitutional threshold to be declared the winner of the polls.
In his petition filed on December 30, 2020, Mr. Mahama sought five reliefs from the apex court.
He among things asked the Supreme Court to declare the EC’s declaration of President Nana Akufo-Addo as winner of the polls as unconstitutional, null and void.
Mr. Mahama based his arguments on some declaration errors made by the EC as well as allegations of vote padding.
He also asked the apex court to order the Electoral Commission (EC) to conduct a re-run of the election between himself and President Akufo-Addo.
But the seven-member panel of the apex court constituted to hear the case subsequently dismissed the petition.