Faustina Elikplim Akurugu is MP-elect for Dome Kwabenya - EC cancels decision to re-run one polling station

The Electoral Commission (EC) has cancelled the decision to do a re-run at one of the polling stations in the Dome Kwabenya constituency of the Greater Accra Region.

It has accordingly confirmed Faustina Elikplim Akurugu, the candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as the Member of Parliament-Elect for the Dome Kwabenya constituency,

She beat the New Patriotic Party's (NPP) candidate, Michael Aaron Oquaye Jnr with a difference of 298 votes.

The decision was reached after the Electoral Commission met on Tuesday (Dec 31, 2024) to resolve the outstanding issue in relation to collation of the results from the various polling stations in the constituency in respect of the parliamentary election held on December 7, 2024.

After all the issues had been resolved, the Returning Officer for the constituency, James Zakaria Kofi explained that they have arrived at the final result.

And that on the face of the pink sheets, Michael Aaron Yaw Oquaye Jnr. of the NPP polled 50,669 votes, Akurugu Faustina Elikplim of the NDC, polled 50,967 votes, Dora Nyako polled 220 votes and Remy Parkour Edmerson polled 302.

He said the total valid votes were 102,158.

The total rejected ballots were 624 out of the total votes cast of 102,782.

The Returning Officer for the constituency, James Zakaria Kofi therefore went ahead and declared Akurugu Faustina Elikplim as the MP-elect for the Dome Kwabenya constituency. 

Read the full text of the explanation from the Electoral Commission below

Good afternoon to all of you, our media partners and members of the NDC and particularly from the Dome-Kwanenya Constituency. We would like to welcome all of you warmly. We thank the good Lord for making it possible for us to witness the last day of the year.

Indeed to him be all the glory, great things he has done and greater things he will do. Our purpose here this afternoon is simple. It is to provide you, the citizens of Ghana, with an update on the parliamentary election in Dome-Kwanenya Constituency. As you may be aware, on the night of the election, some leaders of political parties asked their supporters to go into our collation centres and this led to chaos and some confusion.

In Dome-Kwanenya, the constituency was no exception. The collation centre was besieged by party supporters who brought collation there to a halt. In the process, pink sheets, results collation forms and other materials were destroyed and collation was not completed on that day.

Since then, as a Commission, we tried to ensure the completion of the collation and as you may bear witness, we held the first exercise to complete the collation in the Dome-Kwanenya Constituency on the 21st of December. Unfortunately, although we came a long way, we were not able to complete it because there were three polling station pink sheets outstanding.

In our second attempt to complete the process, we again brought together the parties, basically the NDC and the NPP with their agents to assist us to bring the collation to a completion to enable us to declare the outcome of the election.

That collation was held on the 28th, just this past Saturday, the 28th of December. At that meeting, the NDC was able to provide two pink sheets which was confirmed by our staff at the constituency. Unfortunately, there was a missing pink sheet, one pink sheet for the Abokobi Women's Training Centre and both the NDC and the NPP did not have the sheets.

It's important to note that the NPP did not have any pink sheets, any of the three pink sheets at all, but after scrutinising the pink sheets presented by the NDC, they were found to be legitimate and they tallied with what we had also found. The missing link was this polling station sheet which none of the parties had and it was for the Abokobi Women's Training Centre. It's important to note that in the attempt to re-collate, our officer had brought a pink sheet for the Abokobi Women's Training Centre and it bore, on the face of it, training.

It had written on the face of it the word ‘training’ and it was a presidential pink sheet. And so, in the view of the Commission, a training pink sheet had no business at the polling station on election day and upon scrutinising it, the Commission was of the view that it could not be accepted. It is important to note that the parties also did not have any evidence.

Both NDC and NPP did not have the pink sheets to confirm whether what was written on the training sheet was legitimate and was accurate. And so in the view of the Commission and in the interest of fairness, the Commission felt that it was proper to re-run the election for that particular polling station to ensure fairness. We have always maintained as a Commission that our interest is not to make anybody a president and this is something we have said across board to all our officers.

Our interest is to conduct credible and transparent elections that are fair, that ensure that the will of the people as expressed at the polls is upheld. And so once none of the parties had any pink sheets to confirm and they both said they didn't have it, we agreed at that meeting that we should have a re-run. It's important to note that at that meeting, the NDC agreed that we had to have a re-run.

The NPP was of the view that because their agents had left the centre, they had not taken part in the collation and therefore they wanted the Commission to start the collation afresh. We explained to them that the Commission had received all the pink sheets and I think that was 369, I believe it was 369 polling stations, and we of course checked that against what had been done by the returning officer and it was accurate.

It was just that one missing pink sheet and that is why we took the decision to have a re-run. And this as I said was agreed to by the NDC. Since then we have not rested on our oars and we've tried to unravel how we came by this.

In all of this, as you may be aware, we of course had reached out to the returning officer and our district officer but we did not have any explanation for the use of the training sheet. What they had said was that the presiding officer realised at the point of filling the form that what she had was a presidential pink sheet and therefore she used a presidential training sheet. It didn't add up.

It was not convincing. And so two days ago as a Commission, in our investigation we had a light-bulb moment. Why don't we go to the ground? Rather than deal with collation agents at the collation centre, why don't we identify, look out for the agents, the polling agents at the Abokobi Women’s Training Centre? And so we took steps. We reached out to the parties and we were able to do that. The Presiding Officer was out of town.

We were able to also reach her and ask her to return to Accra to answer a few questions. This morning we met with her and she explained to us how she arrived at the training sheet. She actually arrived at using the pink sheet for presidential training with training embossed on it.

It's important to note that she did not have this training sheet with her on election day. And it's also important to note that contrary to what is being peddled in the news, that training sheet was not signed by party agents. The question has been asked that, oh it's the EC’s sheet, why are they not using it? Training sheets have no place at the polling station and that's why we are not using it.

It was not a parliamentary training sheet, it was presidential one and it was not signed by any of the party agents. What she has explained is that, as I mentioned, she recognised that she did not have the parliamentary training sheet, she had the presidential. So she tallied everything on paper, she had both agents of the NPP and the NDC confirm the figure and they decided they agreed to go to the collation centre to obtain a copy of the parliamentary training sheet.

Once there, they were informed to go to the district office. On their way there, unfortunately they were accosted by some thugs who threatened their lives and in the process she fled. The good news is that she had the sheet in her bag but she fled and she says that the agents also disserted and they all left.

And so none of them had the results. She had it on a sheet. I'm happy to note, however, that the parties, although we did not have a pink sheet for parliamentary, signed and completed, each party also had their own tally cards and on that tally sheet they had the number of persons who came through. They had all the details, including the results, the total for each political party. We have received that from the NDC.

 Although they are not present here, the presiding officer, some days after the election, reached out to the party agents and the agent for the NDC sent his copy and we've seen that; we have the evidence and their communication. And the tally is that of what our presiding officer had on a training sheet. We have also met with the NDC agent and we've also taken a record of his tally sheet which also contains the number of people who came to the centre and the votes for each of the parties and the tally.

 And that has enabled us to arrive at the completion today. So today, the Commission is pleased to note that it has brought proceedings and collations at the Dome-Kwabenya Constituency to a close. It has gone full circle and we are convinced without a shadow of doubt that the outcome reflects the will of the people as expressed at the polls.

 So as mentioned, ours is not to make anybody president, it is to ensure that our outcomes and our processes guarantee that the people's choice is upheld. So we are happy to note that we have come full circle today and the outcome of that election has been confirmed, has been legitimate, has been the choice of the people. 

 I think that the lesson in it is that our processes must be allowed to work. I know that the candidates have been through quite a bit, but the processes must be allowed to work. I'd like to also put on record that we don't rest on our oars yet and we've burnt the midnight oil to ensure that the right thing is done.

 And we're pleased that we had that flash, that light-bulb moment to go down, to drill down to the ground and that has brought out the truth and the truth will be upheld. So thank you very much for your time this afternoon. 

Writer's email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh 

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