Home- Afari-Gyan confronted with 553 unsigned pink sheetsLawyers for the petitioners challenging the declaration of President John Dramani Mahama as the winner ofthe December 7 and 8, 2012 presidential polls yesterday brought out an additional 553 unsigned pink sheets to disprove claims by the Electoral Commission(EC) that only 905 pink sheets were unsigned. According to the petitioners, morethan 905 pink sheets had no signatures of presiding officers and were, therefore, not fit to be added to the tally of polls, but the EC had, in its defence, claimed thatthere were only 905 unsigned pink sheets, representing 3.5 per cent of the entire results declared. In his bid to negate the EC’s position, lead counsel for the petitioners, Mr Philip Addison, brought out parcels of pink sheets, which were unsigned, andsucceeded in making the Chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, confirm that each of those pink sheets was unsigned. Counsels for the respondents, Mr Tony Lithur, Mr James Quashie-Idun and Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, who represented the President, the EC and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), respectively, did not object to the tendering of the pink sheets (statement of poll anddeclaration of results forms for the office of President). That was because the court had, on July 3, 2013, adjourned proceedings to enable the parties to sort out the said pink sheets to facilitate the hearing of the petition. The pink sheets were listed in parcels of 179, 182, 55, 114, 12 and 11 and Dr Afari-Gyan spent several minutes to go through each of them before they were tendered in evidence as exhibits. Mix-up and Clarification Prior to the tendering of the parcel of 182 pink sheets, Mr Addison had suggested to Dr Afari-Gyan to go through a list of 183 pink sheets which were unsigned, but after going throughthem, Dr Afari-Gyan indicated that one of them had been signed. Mr Addison, after looking at that pink sheet, confirmed Dr Afari-Gyan’s assertion and so it was agreed that the name of that pink sheet be struck out of the list. An issue on the actual number on one of the lists came up when Mr Lithur informed the court that a parcel supposedly containing 115 pink sheets actually had 107 and not 115, but Mr Addison explained that one of the names of the pink sheets was accidentally cancelled. He agreed that the name should be struck out, leaving 114, but he disagreed with Mr Lithur’s claim that the parcel contained 107 pink sheets. One of the judges, Mr Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, collected the list from the petitioners to verify the actual number on it but eventuallystated that the manner in which some names had been cancelled had rendered the list “messy”. He, therefore, suggested to the petitioners to come up with a clearer list, to which they agreed. After the tendering of the lists, Mr Addison informed the court that his side had exhausted the list which had been agreed on by all the parties and consequently prayed the court to allow the parties to sort out and generate another set of lists for cross-examination next week. The court obliged, adjourned the case and urged the petitioners to finalise their list and hand it over to the respondents by 5 p.m. today (July 5, 2013). 905 pink sheets with no signatures Mr Addison asked Dr Afari-Gyan if he had brought the list of 905 polling stations Dr Afari-Gyan had promised to bring in one of his appearances in court, to which Dr Afari-Gyan answered in the affirmative. Dr Afari-Gyan pulled out a list and was asked to locate which pink sheets had no signatures of presiding officers. At that point, he explained that when the EC received an allegation that some pink sheets had not been signed, his outfit looked at the pink sheets “one by one” and as a result, the ones thatwere not signed were part of the report he had brought to the court. The list he brought contained 2,009 polling stations, but he was advised by Mr Justice Jones Dotse to identify those not signed. Dr Afari-Gyan told the court that he did not understand the request to mean he had to submita list of 905 unsigned pink sheets,but Mr Justice Anin Yeboah countered that he could have sought clarification from his lawyer. According to the Chairman of the EC, he could tell which pink sheets had not been signed if he was allowed to look at them individually, but could not tell the specific pink sheets that had not been signed. Mr Quashie-Idun informed the court that the EC tried to tender a list of 907 pink sheets that had not been signed, but Mr Addison objected. What is the difficulty in listing? According to Ms Justice Rose C. Owusu, the unsigned pink sheets had been identified and, therefore, asked where the EC’s difficulty was in identifying them. Mr Justice Dotse asked Dr Afari-Gyan if the list he had brought to court contained more than 905 polling stations, to which the witness said it contained 2,009 polling stations.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 07:55:51 +0000
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