Counsel for Petitioners & Respondents To Deliver Oral Addresses On Wednesday

Counsel for the petitioners and respondents are poised to deliver their oral addresses to the supreme court tomorrow, Wednesday. The oral address will offer the counsel the opportunity to make clarifications and necessary additions to their written addresses which they had earlier filed with the court. Each of the parties will be alloted 30 minutes within which to make the uninterrupted submissions. It is also an opportunity for counsel to showase their oratory and advocay skills which they will attempt to use to persuade the nine justices to sway to their side. Our correspondent, Bubu Klinogo reports that the petitioners are expected to highlight the key alleged violations which they claim affected the results. He again tells us that the petitioners are likely to cite a number of authorities, constitutional and statutory provisions to back their claims and ask the court to declare that President John Mahama was not validly elected, and that it was Nana Akufo Addo who was the legitimate winner of the election. Bubu Klinogo again reports that for their part, all the three respondents are likely to be unanimous in calling on the court to dismiss the petition for lack of merit. He said the respondents are expected to argue that the 2012 election was by far the most free, credible, and transparent in the history of Ghana. They will again argue that no election anywhere can be absolutely free of challenges and hitches here and there and that the irregularities that occurred in December were mere errors that did not affect the outcome of the election. They will conclude by praying the court to uphold the declaration of President John Mahama as the outright winner of the election.