Friday,
May 10, 2013
My
good friends, I have been analyzing the circumstances surrounding the NPP’s
petition against Election 2012, which the Supreme Court has been hearing for the
14th day so far.
And
the most important development at this stage is that the pink sheet exhibits
being used by the petitioners are to be recounted by the KPMG firm as ordered
by Presiding Judge Atuguba at Tsatsu Tsikata’s insistence. While Bawumia and
Philip Addison insisted on 11,842 as the total, Tsatsu and Tony Lithur held
otherwise and pressed for a recount/audit, supported by Quashie-Idun, the EC’s
lawyer.
We
are waiting for the KPMG’s recounting of the pink sheets to know what is what.
The implications for Bawumia will be dire if the result discounts his claim
because the duplicated, triplicated, and quadruplicated pink sheets in the
whole lot will be detected and counted out to reduce the quantity from 11,842
to something less. Perjury-in-the-making?
After
monitoring proceedings to date and paying attention to the nitty-gritty of this
petition and the court proceedings, I am more than convinced that the NPP will go
nowhere with this case. There are two possible ways by which this can happen:
- The Supreme Court will not want
to curtail anything and, therefore, be patient enough to hear the petition
to its logical conclusion but rule against the NPP on the strength of the evidence
before it;
- The Court may be bold enough to
dismiss the case midstream if it is convinced that the NPP’s case has
crumbled and it will be a waste of time and resources to continue hearing
it. This may be a tough call, especially because of the factors that
engendered the petition and the hot-headedness of the NPP elements, seeing
this petition as their last resort to redeem themselves.
The
Court will be cautious in dismissing the case so as not to incite the
disappointed NPP elements; but if it can no more contain the duplicity
unfolding before it, there will be no other option but to dismiss the case as
frivolous and empty—and damn the consequences.
Beyond
these primary issues, there are other major areas to persuade me. After all,
right from the beginning, I saw through this petition and established it as an
adroit exit strategy being used by Akufo-Addo and the NPP bigwigs rooting for
him to escape the wrath of their followers. In effect, the petition is nothing
but a window-dressing and a smokescreen behind which to let off steam and
resign themselves to the sad fate that Election 2012 wrought for them. But can
they do so without being eaten alive by their own followers?
They
knew right from the scratch that they did not win the elections but couldn’t
tell their agitated followers whose expectations they had hyped with vain
propaganda and false assurances of a “one-touch” victory for Akufo-Addo. These
supporters have been held hostage and won’t easily forgive or forget the ordeal
when the wool falls off from their eyes. That is why the internal politics of
deception and massaging of feelings persists.
Beyond
this cunning to outwit their benighted followers, Akufo-Addo and his
co-petitioners have not kept faith with the Supreme Court itself, as we are
being made to see day-in-day-out. Two issues emerge:
- Why did the petitioners isolate
only the Presidential elections to contest (and not the Parliamentary ones
too)?
- Why did they put together only
pink sheets from the NDC’s strongholds to complain about irregularities in
the entries thereon?
A
careful analysis of the situation takes us back to the very seminal conundrum
that underlies the petition itself and catalyzed the rush to the Supreme Court by
Akufo-Addo and Co. to seek redress when they knew very well that they had not
done diligent work to warrant all the time and resources being wasted on the
hearing of this petition.
There
is too much haphazardness in the manner in which the pink sheets were put
together (whether electronically or manually generated). In effect, despite all
the time available to the petitioners to put their house in order, they chose
to “mess things up” to deceive the Court and the respondents’ legal teams.
Unfortunately for them, their treachery has been exposed, which accounts for
the numerous objections so far raised by lawyer Addison.
Why
is he afraid of pink sheets from the NPP’s strongholds being put under the microscope
for the irregularities in the entries to be exposed and explained away as
consistent with what the petitioners had selectively put together from the NDC’s
stronghold? What are the NPP petitioners scared of to warrant their not wanting
Tsatsu to lead evidence concerning the NPP’s strongholds?
Do
these NPP petitioners even want the Supreme Court to examine the integrity of
Election 2012? If they do, why will they not extend their scrutiny of the pink
sheets to all the 26,000 polling stations but limit their work to 24,000 and
come out with slightly over 11,000 as their benchmark for alleging
irregularities?
In admitting that errors occurred,
all that Buwumia has kept saying is
that it is an error but it shouldn't affect someone's presidency.
Bawumia
has admitted the errors detected in the pink sheet exhibits but insisted on
explaining that even though there were duplications, triplications, and
quadruplications, he used only one pink sheet for his analysis.
Everything
he says is tied to this “analysis” as if the Court cares about his
self-opinionated understanding of the issues at stake. If the quantum of pink
sheets itself has errors, what is the guarantee that the analysis based on it
will be valid, error-free, and admissible?
Indeed,
Bawumia doesn’t even know that the Court is interested in nothing but irrefutable
evidence which, in this case, will be expected to derive from nowhere else but the
pink sheet exhibits used as the basis for the petition. Unfortunately for him and
his co-petitioners, he continues to admit that the pink sheet exhibits are
fraught with anomalies, mislabellings, duplications, triplications, and
quadruplications. How damaging!
The
Court knows better, which is why it repudiated Bawumia and Addison’s plea to
use PowerPoint presentation and CD-ROM as supporting material to present their
case.
It
is beyond argument that the main objective of Tsatsu Tsikata in the
cross-examination of Bawumia is to discredit the quantum of evidence presented
by the petitioners and to impugn the credibility and integrity of Bawumia
himself as the star witness for the petitioners.
So
far, Tsatsu has forced Bawumia to admit that there were irregularities in the
compilation of the pink sheet exhibits, which is a major advantage for the
respondents. Thus, by persistently undercutting the credibility of the
exhibits, Tsatsu has succeeded in establishing that most of the pink sheets
tendered in court as evidence have been duplicated, triplicated, and quadrupled
“to deceive the court.” The total number of polling stations where the
electoral malpractices allegedly occurred will definitely be whittled down,
which damages the case of the petitioners.
This
admission by Bawumia is a major factor in the eyes of the law as far as
credibility and the arousal of reasonable doubts in the minds of the judges is
concerned. And in matters of the Court, doubts and lack of credibility count a
lot.
The
matter is accentuated further by the fact that Bawumia wasn’t at any of the
polling stations nor is he using first-hand evidence but entries on the pink
sheets, a distant second-hand or third-hand information. No direct evidence
from Bawumia? Doubts galore!!
Another
major stab on the evidence is the interrogation of Bawumia that has revealed
that the allegations of over-voting and no signatures on the pink sheets are mere
administrative errors. The
results were announced at the various polling stations after the counting of
ballots. It wasn’t what was recorded on the pink sheets that was declared. So,
why the fixation with the entries on the pink sheets?
I shall return…
·
E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com
·
Join me on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/mjkbokor
No comments:
Post a Comment