Less than a month after claiming that over 1.3 million votes had been illegally counted in the 2012 General Elections, the opposition New Patriotic Party says its evidence of irregularity has shot up to over 1.7 million votes.
It would be recalled that at a press conference held last month shortly after the party filed a petition at the Supreme Court questioning the validity of the election 2012 verdict of the Chairman of the Electoral Commission which declared President John Mahama winner of the polls, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, who was one of three petitioners told the media that the party has uncovered massive and pervasive irregularities in the election results.
The Economist and former Deputy Governor at the Bank of Ghana explained that the fraud came in different forms with over 1.3 million votes being illegally counted which tilted the ballots in favour of the sitting president.
According to him, over voting alone was 620,443 votes, voting without verification, 456,933, words and figures that did not match accounted for 3,841 votes.
He even gave the indication that the figure might rise because the party was still auditing figures from the over 26,000 polling stations.
“These 1.34 million votes, identified as wrongly counted, are supported by Pink Sheets from each of the affected polling stations. Adjusting the EC announced results to take account of these illegally counted votes will mean that Nana Akufo-Addo should have been declared president. This is the heart of our case to the Supreme Court. Analysis and gathering of the evidence continue and the 1.34 million figure is likely to increase…, Dr Bawumia said on December 28th.
And, as if to give credence to Dr Bawumia’s projections, the NPP now says the figure has shot up to over 1.7million votes.
A leading member of the party, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko disclosed this on PeaceFM‘s flagship programme, “Kokrokoo” on Thursday.
“That is over 12 per cent” of the total votes, he noted.
The Executive Director of Danquah Institute added that looking at the massive and pervasive irregularities that occurred in the elections, the peaceful approach to resolving the matter taken by the NPP deserves commendation.
More soon…