Second petitioner in the election petition hearing, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has today accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of “lying” about the rationale for printing duplicate serial numbers much to the displeasure of Quarshie Idun, counsel for EC.
According to Bawumia, the EC had said the reason for printing duplicate forms and serial numbers was to accommodate an expected increase in the number of presidential candidates.
This explanation suffered from a “lack of veracity”, he charged and continued; “We all know that the same names [of presidential candidate] appeared on the duplicate forms”.
In his view the EC “basically told untruth. They lied to this in court”.
The witness claimed that the printing of additional serial numbers had “wide spread” impact on the “integrity of the results forms”.
He said over 74 per cent of over voting and over 80 per cent of voting without biometric verification all occurred on the duplicated serial numbers and that raises a lot of suspicion.
“That is no coincidence”, he stated.
He asserted that the issue of duplicate serial numbers was one of the “very sophisticated ways of the malpractice. It was the most difficult to find”
But Counsel for EC, Quarshie Idun found the witness’s description “unacceptable”. He objected to claims by Dr. Bawumia and said his client had pleaded to the contrary.
If Dr. Bawumia disagreed that was his view. He cannot go further than this, Idun argued.
“The witness has persistently used the word “lie”. I am objecting to his language. This is not acceptable”, Quarshi-Idun objected.
Tsatsu Tsikata, counsel for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) also rejected claims by the witness. “There is no malpractice whatsoever”,he said.
Judge Atuguba advised that the witness would have to be “sure” of his claim of misconduct.
To this Dr. Bawumia offered to use the phrase “economical with the truth”.
Source: Myjoyonline
