You kept running from accountability so 2020 polls cannot be best - Mahama to EC Boss

Former President John Dramani Mahama has indicated that the claim by Electoral Commissioner Mrs. Jean Mensa that Ghana’s 2020 polls were the best in history is nothing but a joke.

According to him, Mrs. Jean Mensa could not make such a claim when she refused to account for her stewardship during the 2020 presidential petition.

Mr. Mahama opined that as someone who claims that the elections organized were the best, she should have made herself available for questioning during the petition.

The EC Chairperson has indicated that the electoral body saved the nation up to $90 million after spending over $700 million in the 2020 polls.

She said the EC managed to reduce the cost of the elections through prudent management compared to the 2016 polls.

She explained that the EC reduced the cost of the elections from $13 per person in 2016 to $7.7 in 2020.

She was speaking at the opening ceremony of the high-level parliamentary seminar on the theme “Two decades of democratic elections in ECOWAS member states: Achievements, challenges and the way forward”.

She further described the polls as historic, transparent in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak and price hikes.

"I humbly refer to Ghana’s 2020 elections as historic for the transparency, credibility, cost-effectiveness, high turnout, and peaceful conduct that characterized them. So orderly, so methodical, so calm were the polls on 7th December 2020 that BBC Africa could find no other way to describe our elections than ‘boring’.”

But former President John Dramani Mahama insisted that the polls were not as credible as the EC chair claimed.

"In 2012, Afari Gyan was questioned in the box about the general elections. But in 2020, it got to our turn, the EC Chair Mrs. Jean Mensa, refused. You claimed the 2020 polls were credible, and yet, you refused to testify. You claimed to have organized the best election in Ghana but come and account, you are running away. If you knew the elections were credible, you should have accounted for your work, he added.

The 2020 presidential candidate also expressed worry over the decision of the Supreme Court to rule against his petition.

"The way the court presided over the matter was problematic. We filed for interrogatories, but the court refused. We witnessed how in 2012, the court granted Akufo-Addo his request for interrogatories, but when it got to our turn, we were refused by a unanimous decision,” he stated when he paid a courtesy call on the Divisional Chief of Prestea Himan, Nana Nteboah Prah.

On his part, the traditional leader took the opportunity to ask Mr. Mahama and his political party to be clear on their position on LGBTQI+ activities.

He said such activities should not be entertained in our communities.