Poll petition in Ghana

Ghana’s main opposition candidate in the 7 December election has filed a petition at the Supreme Court seeking to annul President Nana Akufo Addo’s re-election.

Former president John Mahama has said that he lost unfairly to Mr Addo citing electoral irregularities and arguing that both of them did not attain a clear majority.

According to the electoral commission Mr Addo garnered 51.59% of the votes while Mr Mahama got 47.37%.

The opposition party NDC want the Supreme Court judges to order a re-run of the presidential election.

The petition hearing is expected to last for a period of 42 days – far shorter than the 2012 election petition which dragged on for eight months.

In that petition, Mr Addo, then the poll loser, had challenged Mr Mahama’s win but the court dismissed his petition.

Meanwhile, the ruling party NPP and NDC are also planning to challenge some parliamentary results after the final tally confirmed a hung parliament.