The Aftershock in Ghana’s Election 2020

“When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers” so the old adage goes. So in the case of the 2020 presidential petition before the supreme court of Ghana, the two elephants are the two main political parties National Democratic Congress [NDC] and New Patriotic Party [NPP].

The opposition leader of the National Democratic Congress [NDC] Mr. John Dramani Mahama is challenging the election results of 51.30 % declared for his opponent Nana Akufo Addo as the winner by the Electoral Commission [E.C.] of Ghana.

What could be determined as the source of conflict between these two political parties is the determination of attainable 50+1 votes to declare a presidential candidate a winner that all are waiting for the supreme court to rule on.

Of course the grass suffering from this conflict is the ordinary Ghanaian that the conflict might stall development that they need to enjoy.

Having said that, the time bomb which could serve as a threat to Ghana’s beautiful political processes is the confusion surrounding the 50+1% vote constitutional mandate that a presidential candidate must attained in general elections to be declared a winner.

The argument that the 50+1% is not attainable was raised by a distinguish chief of New Juaben, Daasebre [Professor Emeritus] Oti Boateng in his excellent article published in Ghana last year November which called for a total review of that requirement.

It is unfortunate that all have turned a blind eye to the recommendations only for the confusion to continue to serve as a source of conflict threatening our fourth republican constitution governing our party democracy in Ghana.

The 50+1% to be attained by a presidential candidate to emerge as the winner of presidential elections as he put it the number of votes needed to win a presidential election in Ghana is stipulated in the article 63[3] of the constitution and it reads, “A person shall not be elected as president of Ghana unless at the presidential election the number of votes cast in his favour is more than 50% of the total number of the valid votes cast at the election.”

Daasebre Oti Boateng, pointed out that in spite of the clear and unambiguous constitutional provision, the EC introduced an invalid construct, the so called 50%+ plus one vote rule as a proxy for the true constitutional provision stated above.

Explaining the invalid construct, the former state statistician, stated among other reasons why the 50% plus one vote is invalid and mentioned as follows:

a). that the two components of the construct are non-additive since percentages and natural numbers cannot be added unless prior conversion is made from one state to the other,

b) that once the 50 percent of the total valid votes cast in an election is obtained, there is no valid vote or votes left anywhere behind to be added to the 50 percent thereafter, and

c). that in all cases where the total number of valid votes cast in an election is an odd number, it is impossible for any contesting candidate to obtain exactly 50 percent of the votes thus rendering the 50 percent component part of the construct inoperative and invalid.

Having established the source of the conflict which is the invalid construct of the 50% plus one vote, we can now understand why some followers of Mr. John Mahama are insisting that President Nana Akufo Addo did not attain 50% plus one vote to emerge the winner of the last election and seeking for a run off between the two.

No but on countless occasions Sammy Gyamfi of the NDC were heard on radio challenging the EC that per their own collated results the president did not attain more than 50 % rather he got 49.98%.

But so strange enough, Mr. John Mahama is not challenging the electoral figures which were declared by the [E.C] as rejected ballots that some officers deliberately tempered with ballots.

Ghana’s election 2020 is over and Nana Akufo Addo has been sworn in to serve another four years term of the office as the head of state.

However the aftershock in the December 7, 2020 elections could be felt weeks after the election not because the president managed to beat his opponent to retain his seat.

But the opposition leader and his followers piling up troubles which could hinder Akufo Addo’s successful administration for the last lap.

Forget about the unsubstantiated allegations of corruption tag the opposition leader John Mahama tried to hang on the New Patriotic Party [NPP] leader, the failure of his government to cushion ordinary Ghanaians that pushed Nana Akufo Addo over the edge to defeat John Mahama.

Still talk about allegations of Agyapa Fiscal scandal which is hanging around the neck like albatross of some ministers of the NPP government which Nana Akufo Addo is the leader.

Seriously could you believe that just few weeks after the EC declared Nana Akufo Addo winner of the 2020 election, Mr. John Mahama and some of his followers petitioned the supreme court to annul the election results and call a run off between him and the president?

At the time of filing this article for consideration and publication, my attention was drawn to the fact that last year’s election recorded the highest number of rejected ballots in the history of Ghana’s elections.

According to the chairperson of the EC Mrs. Jane Adukwei Mensah, the election body registered 17, 027, 64 eligible voters in the last election. Out of which 13,434,574 votes were cast on the voting day.

The President Nana Akufo Addo obtained six million, seven hundred and thirty thousand, four hundred and thirteen votes [6,730,413] which represented 51.30%. His main challenger Mr. John Dramani Mahama also got six million, two hundred and fourteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine [6,214,889] votes which also represented 47.36%.

What the electoral commissioner has failed to tell Ghanaians is how many rejected ballots were recorded in the last elections so that we can deeply interrogate the matter as comrade Kwaku Baako will always say.

This is one of the reasons why I don’t agree with the Minister of information Mr. Oppong Nkrumah going on radio and television shows talking about other issues and not the spoilt ballots.

At least a countless number of Ghanaians saw what happened at the polling stations where some returning officers deliberately tore off the first position of Nana Akufo Addo.

This criminal act did not just reduce the number of votes for Akufo Addo, those tempered ballots also carried the serial numbers which rendered them rejected ballots.

So the question many are asking is how many ballots were rejected because Akufo Addo’s slot was torn off?