[ads3]It is almost two weeks since the independent electoral commission of Ghana declared President Nana Akufo-Addo as the winner of the 2020 presidential election in Ghana.
President Akufo-Addo led the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and won by obtaining 6,730,587 popular votes representing 51.3%. His closest rival and former President John Mahama of the opposition NDC obtained 6,213,182 popular votes representing 47.36%.
Local and International observers have praised the country for a peaceful, free, fair and transparent election 2020 with minor and isolated incidence of violence. The EU and US as well as ECOWAS and AU missions have praised Ghana’s solid democratic growth consolidation through the conduct of the 8th consecutively successful election in the forth republic.
But since the declaration, the main opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC) has rejected the official results and accused the EC and the ruling NPP, without evidence, of scheming to rig the elections in favor of the incumbent President. The party has 21 days from the day of declaration to go to court to challenge the election outcome. But rather than going to court, the former President John Mahama and other opposition NDC party leaders have resorted to incendiary rhetoric that has seen foot soldiers massing up at the EC headquarters and other locations for street protest against the directives of the public order act.[ads2]
A day after the December 7 2020 elections, the NDC leadership claimed without an iota of evidence that the party had won 140 seats at the end of total collation. It turned out later that both NDC and NPP secured 137 seats each with 1 independent parliamentarian working with the ruling NPP.
But rather than focusing on demonstrating how the Presidential elections were rigged, the NDC leader and former President John Mahama has rather bizarrely based his rejection of the general election results on parliamentary seats
“We will not accept anything short of a declaration of the legitimate results which points to an NDC parliamentary majority”, Mahama said at a press conference.
While individuals and civil society organizations are calling on the NDC leader to go to court to challenge the results with hard evidence, John Dramani Mahama is calling for an independent forensic audit of the election results. This signals currently from the former President John Mahama to his followers and Ghanaians indicate he and his party want to play in the court of public opinion instead of court of law. And so far, the NDC and John Mahama seem to be loosing in the court of public opinion. But the 2020 general elections results have already entered the gazette.
At this point, it is only the courts apparently that can compel the EC or commission an external auditor to do such an independent audit. This brings up more questions as to why former President John Mahama has chosen to mislead his followers unto the streets to vandalize public properties and disturb the public peace with the excuse of protesting against a ‘stolen verdict.’[ads1]
The NDC has threatened to use every legitimate means to challenge the results – including possibly going to court akin to the NPP’s 2013 Supreme Court election petition.
John Mahama and the NDC’s feet dragging regarding the court is making people believe they may not have concrete evidence backing their fantastic claims of rigging.
For if John Mahama had hard evidence on rigging, he would concentrate on building a case but the leader of the NDC is rather inciting street protests with some leading members of the opposition even making the reckless suggestion for John Mahama to declare himself President-elect and go ahead to form a parallel government. Interestingly, this suggestion came from an NDC lawyer and former minister of state without respect for the rule of law.
Last week, the blind followers responded to the incendiary rhetoric of their leaders by beseeching the headquarters of the Electoral Commission. Hot water cannons from a detachment of Ghana police and Ghana army welcomed the NDC foot soldiers who had to run for their lives with many sustaining injuries.
There have since been reports of sporadic street protests in the city of Accra where street protesters used burnt tires to block the streets and hold the traffic. In all, the police arrested 26 protestors for breaching the public order Act.
Questions are now being asked regarding the true intentions of John Mahama and his party. If they intend going to the court of law to seek redress, why are they so bent on loosing the sympathy of the public before they arrive in court?
In 2012, the NDC criticized the NPP heavily for attempting to embark on demonstrations as a sign of expressing their dissatisfaction with the election results of that year.
“NPP should stop demonstrating and go to court if they have confidenc’’, Haruna Iddrisu, the current Minority leader in Parliament said in 2012 after the elections.
The General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah famously reacted to the NPP’s threat of court action in 2012 by saying, “Any idiot can go to court in a democracy.”
Considering that we now have the benefit of hindsight and this is just history repeating itself with emphasis, did John Mahama and the NDC miss the lesson of history? Or are they just doing politics of convenience without empathy what so ever for the followers whose passions and rage are being inflamed and exploited by the current leadership rhetoric and direction.
The Ghanaian people, like many other people of the world have suffered a very chaotic year in 2020. A global pandemic created a public health crisis and wreaked economic hardship throughout the year. In the midst of all the chaos, the electoral commissioners led with tenacity to ensure constitutional and democratic continuity and excellently created a new voter’s register.[ads3]
Now that the elections are over and the year is ending with news of new vaccines for Covid-19, the last thing Ghanaians want is political tensions. No wonder that traders in the capital are now blaming the opposition NDC and John Mahama for denying them a peaceful end of a tough year.
According to Joy FM interviews, traders and market people blame the NDC for scaring the people away from the
markets due to political tensions.
Many political observers believe the behavior of the opposition leader John Mahama points to his desire to run for elections in 2024. However, it is still unclear to observers as to how the twice-rejected former President John Mahama intends to endear himself to the people of Ghana by discrediting the 2020 verdict and denying the people peace.
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