2020 polls: 'We didn't go to court over pink sheets' – Former NDC MP

A former Member of Parliament for Builsa North on the ticket of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Timothy Ataboadey Awontiirim, has said former President John Mahama’s election petition was not over pink sheets.

He said they went to court purposely to stop a constitutional abuse of the electoral process.

“We [NDC] didn’t go to court because of pink sheets; we went to court to challenge a constitutional abuse – the fact that the Constitution said that you must get 50 per cent plus one before you are declared the president without which it is tantamount to a usurpation of the people’s power; it’s a coup d’état”, Mr Awontiirim told Nana Yaw Adwenpa on CTV’s morning show Anopa Dwabremu on Wednesday, 27 October 2021.

He said “per our calculation, the president did not get the required 50 per cent plus one and we also fell short of that so that was why we went to the court”.

“We didn’t go to the court to prove our pink sheets; it wasn’t a 'pink sheets' case”, he stressed.

“People should get this clear once and for all”, he said.

The former lawmaker emphasised: “We went to the court to challenge a constitutional abuse and the abuse was that the Constitution says that before the president can be declared winner of the presidential election, he must get 50 per cent plus one of the votes. That was why we went to court”.

“Our General Secretary sorted out those papers just for an example of the fact that they did not get 50 per cent plus one”.

“That was even why Tsatsu Tsikata asked: ‘Where was Jean Mensa three hours to the declaration of the results?’ She was not found at the Electoral Commission; where was she?”

The Supreme Court upheld the EC’s declaration of President Nana Akufo-Addo as the winner of the 2020 presidential election at the hearing of the petition.

---classfmonline