NDC files supplementary affidavit

Also attached to the petition is the EC.

According to the petitioners, irregularities recorded during the elections favoured the NDC, noting that 24,000 of the pink result sheets from some polling stations indicated that those irregularities were enough to affect the results.

However, domestic election observers and international observers have described the elections as generally free and fair.

The supplementary affidavit further pointed out that President Mahama was selected as a presidential candidate on the ticket of the NDC after the death of Professor John Evans Atta Mills and subsequently stood on the ticket of the party in the December 2012 elections.

It said the NDC “deployed throughout all the polling stations agents to represent the interests of its candidates in both presidential and parliamentary elections”.

It stated that it was indisputable that as the party which selected President Mahama to stand on its platform and on whose platform he stood, “the applicant herein has a vital interest in this petition and deserves to be joined as respondent and be heard in this petition”.

An affidavit in support of the substantive motion for joinder deposed on behalf of the NDC said the NDC as a party on whose ticket the President contested the elections “has a direct interest and a stake in the matter and will be affected by any decision of this honourable court”.

“As a party which will be directly affected by the decision, the NDC is entitled to be joined as a party and be heard in respect of the petition and seek to be joined by the motion herein,” it pointed out.

It said the NDC was a political party registered under the laws of Ghana and had ,since the inception of the Fourth Republic, nominated a sponsored candidates for both parliamentary and presidential elections.

But Nana Akufo-Addo is opposed to the NDC’s application for joinder on the grounds that the move was aimed at delaying the trial.

Hearing of the motion for joinder has been fixed for today.

The Chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, on December 9, 2012 declared President Mahama winner of the polls with 50.70 per cent, while his closest contender, Nana Akufo-Addo, placed second with 47.74 per cent.

The petitioners are disputing the results of the election but the EC maintains that the results it declared were credible and accurate.

President Mahama had since been sworn into office.

Story by Mabel Aku Baneseh