Rerun of Gomoa East NPP primary set for August 8 because of one spoilt ballot paper
The rerun of the Gomoa East Constituency parliamentary primary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been slated for August 8, 2015 at Gomoa Akramang.
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The primary will be held again between two candidates due to the fact that the two, Mr Kojo Asomani and Dr Marqus Yaw Danso, polled 153 votes each after the ballots were counted twice in the first election held on June 13, 2015.
Lawsuit
An aggrieved card-bearing member of the party and supporter of Dr Marqus Danso, Mr Adolf Nfodwo, filed a suit at the Agona Swedru High Court against the Regional NPP electoral officer, the Regional NPP and Kojo Asomani, praying the court to declare his candidate as the validly elected parliamentary candidate for the area, because there were some anomalies that occurred during the counting of the votes.
The plaintiff, in his statement of claim, sought a declaration that since upon the first count of the ballot all officials agreed that all the 154 valid votes were for his candidate, it could not be held that any of the said valid votes should be declared as a rejected ballot paper upon a recount.
He also prayed the court to direct the Central Regional NPP to declare Mr Marqus Danso as the validly elected candidate with 154 votes over the third defendant, Mr Kojo Asomani, to become the parliamentary candidate for Gomoa East Constituency in the 2016 election.
Injunction
While the court, presided over by Justice Peter Dei Offei, had begun hearing the substantive case, the plaintiff again, through his counsel,
Mr Nkrabea Effah Darteh, filed another suit praying the court to issue an emergency interim order of injunction to restrain the three defendants from going ahead to organise a rerun of the primary until the controversies surrounding the earlier election had been resolved in the substantive suit.
According to the plaintiff, the three defendants were secretly arranging a rerun of the election, hence his call for an injunction to prevent it.
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The presiding judge, however, on Wednesday, July 22, 2015, dismissed the application for interlocutory injunction to be placed on the rerun of the primary, describing the issue as a fraternal one which could easily be resolved within the party.
Meanwhile, the substantive matter is still pending before the court.
The Gomoa East Constituency Youth Organiser of the NPP, Mr Richmond Otoo, who spoke to the Daily Graphic in a telephone interview last Wednesday, said that the court ruling had paved the way for the rerun of the election.
According to him, the constituency and regional executives, together with the two candidates, had held series of meetings since the court ruling to draw the modalities for the election.
He stated that the two competing candidates were happy with the process so far, stressing that everything was set for a successful primary on the said date.
Advice to candidates
Mr Otoo advised the candidates against an acrimonious campaign that would create divisions in the party after the primary.
He urged them to be civil in their campaign to promote unity, which would pave the way for the party to wrest the parliamentary seat from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in next year’s general election.
He expressed optimism that whoever would emerge victorious after the primary would win the seat for the party in 2016.