Election 2020: You can’t achieve anything if you don’t go to court – Akwetey to NDC

The Executive Director of the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwetey, has told the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that the only way they can achieve their heart desire in relation to the results of the 2020 election is to go to court.

He explained in an interview with TV3 that although protests are allowed if the party actually is determined to attain any result then they should go to court.

“I think that going to court is most important because that is the only opportunity you can have the Electoral Commission (EC) scrutinized."

“The constitutional court has powers to interpret anything the EC does and give directives that are binding."

“If you take the judiciary away, nobody can get into EC’s business or tell the EC what they should do,” Dr Akwetey said.

NDC supporters have been hitting the streets to protest against the result of the election as declared by the chair of the Electoral Commission (EC) Jean Mensa after the presidential candidate John Dramani Mahama said he will not accept those results.

In the view of Mr Mahama, the results were manipulated to favour the governing New Patriotic Party.

Addressing the nation on Friday, December 11, the presidential candidate of the NDC said, “The facts and figures on the pink sheets available to us indicate that numerous steps have been taken to manipulate the elections in favour of the incumbent."

“This calls into question the credibility of one of our most important institutional pillars of democracy, the Electoral Commission."

“It is now obvious to many objective minds that the Commission and its chairperson have been used to manipulate results from the various constituencies and in that process seek to subvert the sovereign will of the Ghanaian people.”

He added, “Since the inception of the Fourth Republic, final election results have always been declared within a 72-hour period to allow for thorough and diligence collation."

“Surprisingly, this Electoral Commission chairperson announced quite suspiciously for reasons known to her a hurried 24-hour deadline which, as we all know, could not and would not be met."