CSOs Petition Chief Justice For Live Telecast Of Election Petition

Five Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have petitioned Chief Justice Kwesi Anin Yeboah to allow for the 2020 election petition to be telecast live like it was done during the eight-month-long election petition in 2013.

Dated the 31st of December, 2020, the petition said an airing of the court proceedings will enrich transparency around the election and also enhance the country’s democratic culture.

“We are by this letter, respectfully petitioning your high office pursuant to Supreme Court (Amendment) (No. 2) Rules, 2016 (C.I. 99), Rule 69C to transmit live the proceedings of your court to wit, the hearing of the election petition filed by the National Democratic Congress. The live telecast of the proceedings of the case will expand the transparency of the court sittings as this case is of another historic importance and will deepen Ghana’s democracy,” the CSOs wrote.

The CSOs are Strategic Thinkers Network-Africa (STRANEK-Africa), Tax Payers Union, BackBone for Good Governance, Centre for Ethical Governance and Administration, African Centre for Peacebuilding.

Nii Tettey Tetteh, Executive Director of STRANEK-Africa, Christopher Ankou of the TaxPayers Union, Prof. Ohene Adjei of the Centre for Ethical Governance and Administration and Emmanuel Korsi Senyo of the African Centre for Peacebuilding signed the petition respectively.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has filed a petition at the Supreme Court asking for the 2020 Presidential election to be annulled on account of flaws in the declaration by the Electoral Commission.

Following what is widely seen as a blatant rigging of the election, the EC has changed the results that it declared seven times in what appears to be an attempt to jostle the flawed results to fit into a pre-cast agenda to declare Akufo-Addo as the winner.

Many Ghanaians are expecting a live telecast of the hearings as the country already has a precedent in the 2012 election petition which was telecast live.

 However, there has not been any announcement to that effect.