NPP wins 7 of 9 disputed constituencies, 2 pending

The Electoral Commission (EC) last Saturday completed the collation or re-collation of seven constituencies, with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) winning each one of them.

The seven were part of nine constituencies that the EC said it had challenges with the collation, some of them with uncompleted collation and others with supposed flawed collation.

The elections management body had, therefore, indicated that it would not recognise the earlier outcomes of those with the said flawed collations, all of which had gone in favour of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The seven constituencies are Nsawam-Adoagyiri in the Eastern Region, Ahafo Ano South West, Ahafo Ano North and Obuasi East, all in the Ashanti Region, Tema Central in the Greater Accra Region and Techiman South in the Bono East Region.

However, the process for the Dome-Kwabenya and Ablekuma North constituencies in the Greater Accra Region have been forwarded to the EC’s management for a decision.

This was after the recollation had been put on hold due to issues with some pink sheets, also called Summary of Results Sheets, that were not available for the recollation exercise at the Greater Accra Regional office.

The NPP parliamentary candidates who were declared winners during the exercise included the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for Nsawam-Adoagyiri, Frank Annor-Dompreh; incumbent MP for Techiman South, Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah; incumbent MP for Okaikwei Central, Patrick Yaw Boamah, and incumbent MP for Obuasi East, Patrick Yiadom-Boakye.

The rest, all new entrants, were MPs-elect for Tema Central, Charles Forson; Ahafo Ano North, Eric Nana Agyemang-Prempeh, and Ahafo Ano South West, Elvis Osei Mensah Dapaah.

Results

Mr Annoh-Dompreh polled 29,640 votes out of the total valid votes of 59,779 to beat Philibert A. Fummey of the NDC who obtained 29,433 votes.

For Okaikwei Central, Mr Boamah polled 21,099 votes while Abdulai Abu Baba Abubakar Sidique of the NDC had 19,378 votes.

Mr Agyemang-Prempeh polled 20,353 votes to win the Ahafo Ano North seat while his sole contender, Kwasi Adusei of the NDC, secured 20,232 votes.

Mr Boakye-Yiadom won the Obuasi East seat with 18,558 votes with Samuel Aboagye of the NDC securing 18, 539 votes.

Mr Korsah won Techiman South with 46,663 to beat Christopher Beyere of the NDC who had 43,429 votes.

For Tema Central, Mr Forson won with 18,870 votes while Ebi Bright of the NDC secured 18,815.

For the Ahafo Ano South West, Mr Dapaah polled 16,058 votes while Abubakar Sadik of the NDC secured 15,372 votes.

Mr Boakye-Yiadom polled 18,558 votes to win the Obuasi East seat, with Samuel Aboagye of the NDC securing 18, 539 votes.

EC

The Director, Electoral Services, at the EC, Benjamin Bano-Bio, who briefed journalists on the outcome of the exercise, said the commission was not able to have all the pink sheets from all the polling stations for the Ablekuma North recollation exercise, so the commission used a limited one, adding that “we are left with 31 polling stations so we cannot go ahead to declare”.

For Dome-Kwabenya, he said the results were collated but one of the three results used by the Returning Officer was a soft copy from the Presiding Officer.

Mr Bano-Bio said the political parties were asked to bring the hard copies of the pink sheet to authenticate the results but they could not provide them.  

Invitation

The Director of Electoral Services who briefed journalists at the start of the process said that the NPP and NDC were invited for the exercise, and stated that the commission had not been served with any court order to halt the exercise to collate and declare the winners for the nine disputed constituencies.

He added that the fact that a political party was not present did not invalidate the process, and cited instances in 1996 and 2004 where the EC took similar steps to address irregularities recorded to buttress his point.

“We are here today to ensure that the right thing is done to ensure the collation processes that were not completed will continue from where they left off,” Mr Bano-Bio said. He added that “the actual or the right candidate that will emerge the winner will be declared to the whole country.”

The exercise

The exercise, which was held amid tight security with the deployment of personnel of the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, the Ghana National Fire Service and the military, was to complete the collation process and declare the winners of the parliamentary election in those constituencies in accordance with the electoral laws.

NPP parliamentary candidates (PCs) for the affected constituencies were present but the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had announced its absence and filed an application at the Supreme Court to quash the High Court's decision.

NDC, NPP

In spite of the decision not to attend, some NDC parliamentary candidates, who had earlier been declared winners of the parliamentary elections in some of the constituencies, visited the collation centres to register their protest over the exercise but left the venues after that.

They were Ebi Bright for Tema Central, Ewurabena Aubynn for Ablekuma North and Baba Abubakar Sadiq Abdulai Abu for Okaikwei Central.

A heated argument ensued between the NDC MP for South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Etse Kwami Dafeamekpor, lawyer for Ms Bright, and EC officials for the Tema Central Constituency over whether the collation of results should start afresh or continue from where it was left off on December 8, 2024.

Mr Dafeamepkor said the order by the Accra High Court was for recollation and not to continue from a midpoint where the process was supposedly halted on December 8, but the Returning Officer for Tema Central, Kwasi Brobbery, disagreed with that position and instead proceeded to continue from where the process was said to have been truncated.

The NDC Deputy Director of Elections and IT, Dr Tanko Rashid Computer, who stormed the centre, objected strongly to the exercise, saying the NDC would not accept the outcome of the exercise.

“We won’t accept every bit of things to happen here. That’s the position of the party,” he told journalists at the centre.

The Majority Leader in Parliament and MP for Effutu, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, who was present at the collation centre, told journalists that the seven constituencies declared in favour of the NPP had brought the party’s seats in the ninth Parliament to 89 after an initial 82.

He congratulated them and called on the NDC to accept the outcomes of the exercise.

Recall

The Accra High Court last Friday ordered the EC to bring finality to the election in the affected constituencies by collating the results and declaring the winners in tandem with the electoral laws of the country.

Apart from the order to collate the results and declare the winners, the court, presided over by Justice Rev. Fr Joseph Adu Owusu Agyemang, further ordered the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to provide the EC with adequate security at the collation centres to enable the commission to discharge its duties.

The court gave the orders after it upheld different mandamus applications filed by the respective NPP parliamentary candidates.