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Losing an election painful; says Akufo-Addo as he marks a year after SC verdict

By MyJoyOnline
Politics Losing an election painful; says Akufo-Addo as he marks a year after SC verdict
AUG 29, 2014 LISTEN

The Presidential candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party in the 2012 elections, Nana Akufo-Addo says the pain of losing the election would have been less telling if it din't come with the feeling that he was cheated.

Addressing party followers in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region to commemorate the first anniversary of the verdict of the Supreme Court on the petition challenging the election results, Nana Akufo-Addo called for the respect for the rules governing future election in order to protect the credibility of the country's electoral process.

Nana Akufo-Addo; his running mate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and then party chairman, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, prayed the Court to annul the election results which they claimed was fraught with irregularities.

The panel of judges, led by Justice William Atuguba ruled by 5:4 to uphold the Electoral Commission's declaration of president John Mahama as winner of the December 7, election on the ticket of the governing National Democratic Congress.

But speaking at the forum as part of his campaign for a third bid to lead the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo said "there should not be any lingering questions about the legitimacy of an election and the winning candidate at the end of the process should receive the unalloyed support of all”.

“There will always be winners and losers in an election; that is the system of governance we have chosen. It is painful enough to lose an election, I can testify to that; but the pain should not come with a suspicion of having been cheated,” he told the gathering.

According to him, the verdict of the Supreme Court will serve as guidance for the NPP not to repeat mistakes it made during future elections.

“The NPP is taking these hard lessons seriously and will approach all future elections with the experience of the Court very firmly in mind. A major lesson is the need for maximum vigilance on the part of NPP people so that we can protect our votes and ensure that our victory is correctly recorded and reported from the polling station.

The greater lesson he noted, is for us as a nation to seek to improve our electoral process as a whole, based on the revelations that emerged from the court hearings.

“The message from the majority on the Court was clear: we might agree with a petitioner that strange things occurred during the elections, we might all be dissatisfied with the performance of polling agents, we might ask for presiding officers that are literate and numerate, we might even agonize about infractions of electoral regulations, but what happens at the polling station is sacred and results declared there will not be reversed”.

Listen to Nana Akufo-Addo's address in the audio attached: Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Jerry Tsatro Mordy | [email protected]

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