Ghana opposition seeks to overturn Akufo-Addo’s election win

Ghana’s comparatively peaceable election on December 7 noticed incumbent Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) declared the winner with 51.59% of the vote, forward of his major challenger, former President John Mahama of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), who acquired 47.37%.
While defeated candidates usually concede in Ghana, Mahama on Wednesday petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the outcomes.
‘Rigged’ election?
The elections noticed violence that killed a minimum of 5 individuals, in what is taken into account considered one of West Africa’s most secure democracies. Sporadic road protests by NDC supporters who dismiss the vote as “rigged” have taken place since election day.
The NDC needs the Supreme Court to annul Akufo-Addo’s win. Party chief John Mahama argues that the declaration of the incumbent as winner was unlawful as a result of no candidate secured the required variety of votes to be declared winner
The opposition has but to make public proof of fraud and has to date made public little of the main points of its petition. Ghana’s Supreme Court is predicted to listen to the case subsequent week. It has 42 working days from the beginning of a listening to to subject a choice.
2012 precedent
It will not be the primary time {that a} Ghanaian presidential election end result has ended up within the Supreme Court. In 2012, Akufo-Addo’s NPP get together petitioned the courtroom to throw out then-president Mahama’s win. Court proceedings have been proven reside on state tv.
“It became a novel case not just in Ghana, but across Africa,” Ghanaian political communications analyst Etse Sikanku instructed DW. Experience from being on the dropping aspect of the courtroom case in 2012 places Akufo-Addo’s NPP in an uncommon place.
“Politically they maintain that they won the elections,” Sinkaku says, however “they are taking this fairly seriously”.
The Supreme Court listening to is predicted to be broadcast reside on state TV. But that won’t cease the swearing-in of the declared winner of the election, Ghanaian decide Yonny Kulendi instructed reporters.
“Once you are declared by the Electoral Commission as the winner, you are the winner until someone makes and proves a case, and that case finds favor with the court vested with jurisdiction to do so.”
Commended election
Despite Mahama’s petition, the electoral fee, and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have expressed satisfaction with the election course of.
“There was really a lot of commendation for the electoral commission in terms of the very process of voting on voting day. All of this we are seeing only started begun to happen after the voting process took place…and when it came to the eventual declaration,” says Sikanku.
The comparatively slim win for Akufo-Addo has divided the nation, and opinions range over the authorized problem to the election outcomes. But for political analyst Wilberforce Asare, the NDC’s determination to go to the nation’s high courtroom must be welcomed.
“If you do not go to court, then the last resort will be violence and violence will never show who is right it will only show what is left,” Asare instructed DW.
“It is going to add to the jurisprudence of our country. It will have a way of improving our election processes. All of our elections have been improved because we decided to go to court to adjudicate the matter and put our grievances aside.”
The state’s tendency to broadcast the case, prefer it did for the 2012 election, is geared toward giving transparency to the method.
“I think, by and large, everybody had the sense that all the petitioners or the respondents had their day in court,” Sikanku says.

Underlying ‘elements’
While Ghana has acquired credit score for being comparatively peaceable round election occasions in West Africa, there have all the time been parts violence and concern over the independence of the electoral fee that want consideration, Sikanku says. He factors to the presence of the nation’sNational Peace Council, a nationwide physique that promotes non-violent methods in response to battle and launches pre-election campaigns on why you will need to settle for election outcomes and vote peacefully.
“The time has come for us to really move from the growing and developing nations democracy to now establishing our democracy by addressing issues which have come up during each election,” he says.