General Secretary for the ruling New Patriotic Party has questioned NDC’s presidential candidate John Dramani Mahama on his call for an independent forensic audit into the outcome of the 2020 December 7 elections.
John Boadu said this is not found in any of the laws of the state.
“All of a sudden we are hearing about auditing [of election results] and we are asking, ‘where does this place in our political arrangements; either the C.I 127 or our national constitution, where does this place? And how independent will that independent body be?,” he said during a press conference Tuesday.
This comes after Mr Mahama requested for a forensic audit into the 2020 elections during an interview with VOA news.
Mr Boadu, however, said Mr Mahama must come to terms with his defeat since the NPP won with a margin of over 500,000 votes.
“Instead of you [NDC] to do your work by independently collating and following your results, you decided to shirk that responsibility and you’re now asking for an independent audit, where does this fall?
“Where in our democracy does that fit into the current arrangement? I think it is better for him to come to terms with what has happened; you’ve lost the elections with over 5,000 votes,” he said.
He added that the closeness of the parliamentary vote is “the Ghanaian way” of telling the two major political parties to collaborate and avoid the adversarial politics that has characterised politics in the 4th republic.
“We have accepted the challenge. We are ready to work with the NDC for the good of the country,” he said.
Mahama’s call for an independent audit into election 2020
Former President John Dramani Mahama has called for an independent forensic audit into the outcome of the 2020 December 7 polls.
Mr Mahama maintained that the 2020 election was flawed and further noted that until a forensic audit is conducted, the NDC would not concede defeat.
“This is the most incompetent election we’ve had. I mean everything about this election does not reach the standard the EC has attained for itself,” he told VOA news during an interview.
This joins various allegations levelled against the EC and the ruling party following the outcome of the 2020 elections.
Mr Mahama had earlier questioned the credibility of the Electoral Commission during various press conferences.
He has further noted that the EC has demonstrated gross incompetence with the outcome of this elections.
“Ghana’s EC is held in high esteem but unfortunately in this election she [Jean Mensa] can’t even get the results right. The declaration is all over the place,” he said,
He added that “in the run off of the elections there were various flaws in the processed and we [NDC] kept drawing the attention of the Commission to them and its like the EC was adamant to our call.
“With the incompetence, the EC has shown, it will be useful for us to do a forensic audit of the EC’s own systems and numbers to come to what the final number from the EC is.
He added that if the independent audit is satisfactory, “I’ll be the first to concede and walk away.”
“As long as that is not done and we know there was a deliberate attempt to subvert the will of the people in favour of the incumbent, it will be wrong for me to just leave it because we will not learn the lessons of this election,” he added.