News:
March 4, 2013
A member of the National Democratic Congress says the presidential election petition by three leading members of the New Patriotic Party will be thrown out because it is baseless.
Murtala Mohammed who is also a Member of Parliament for Nantong told the panel on Joy FM’s Newsfile programme Saturday that the Supreme Court is not alike the Alisa Hotel or Opera Square where the NPP leaders will pontificate about alleged fraud in the 2012 elections and not be subjected to strict proof.
“This case, they have no case. They are going to be defeated. Their case is going to be thrown out because the law court is not Alisa Hotel where you hold press conferences .The law court is not Opera Square. The law court is where serious minds are considered and where you must provide evidence you just don’t make allegations. You will be forced to provide evidence and failure to do so, the case will be thrown out,” he stated.
He was commenting on the presidential election petition case which is currently before the Supreme Court and which will be at full throttle after the initial motions from all parties have been decided.
The Electoral Commission in its response to the further particulars the petitioners presented stated categorically that all voters in the 2012 election were verified before they voted.
The petitioners- Nana Akufo-Addo, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, Jake Obetsebi Lamptey had cited as one of the irregularities, failure by presiding officers to ensure that all voters were verified before voting.
Whilst the EC completely rejected the claim by the petitioners, the third respondent which is the National Democratic Congress admits that people may have voted without being verified but they were quick to add that voting without verification is not necessarily against the law.
Kweku Kwarteng who is Member of Parliament for Obuasi and who was also on the Newsfile show found as curious the contradiction between the response by the EC and that of the NDC on the issue on verification.
He said it was to be expected for the EC to take the position they did because they had set the ground rules for the 2012 election, one of which was “no verification, no vote.”
Quoting copiously from CI 75, the law that governed the organisation of the 2012 election, Kwarteng insisted nobody was to be allowed to vote without going through verification but they have evidence to show thousands of voters were allowed to vote without going through the verification process.
He said they will be putting this evidence before the courts when hearing begins.
But Murtala Mohammed insists the NPP has no evidence to show for anything.
“Before you go to court, you should have been convinced that I am going to court on this [evidence]. You can’t allege without having any evidence. What the NPP did is that let’s put out the allegation and let’s begin to fish for evidence,” he stated.
He said the Supreme Law of the land allows for people to vote without verification and any other law will be inferior to the constitution.
Myjoyonline.com