Tema Central NPP rejects results

The New Patriotic Party (NPP), has rejected the collated parliamentary results announced by the Electoral Commission (EC) for the Tema Central constituency in Greater Accra.

The collation of the results which started at the Chemu Senior High Technical School on Saturday night had to be continued at the Tema Regional Police Command on Monday, December 9, 2024, following disagreements which led to the firing of tear gas by the police leading to the collapse of one of the EC officials in the early hours of Sunday.

The collation process, which was carried out at the premises of the Tema Regional Police Headquarters, was supervised by the Tema Metro Electoral Officer, Manasseh Ofosuhene Asante and had officials of the NPP and the NDC disagreeing on the validity of figures on three pink sheets out of the 148 pink sheets used in the tabulation,

NDC officials present at the collation led by Rockson-Nelson Etse Kwami Dafeamekpor, Member of Parliament for South Dayi constituency flagged some of the pink sheets and rejected the inclusion of the contentious pink sheets stating the failure of the Presiding Officers at those polling stations to endorse the said pink sheets.

The NPP officials were present at the collation table, but the party’s constituency chairman, Charles Boateng insisted the contentious pink sheets must be included in the tabulation to ensure accuracy in the final results.

The back and forth went on for over four hours and so the EC Director of Tema opted not to declare the parliamentary results but rather refer the issue to the EC head office for resolution.

This explanation did not go down well with some of the NDC officials present, including the Deputy National Communication Officer of the NDC Malik Basintale who rallied NDC members to besiege the collation centre to destroy canopies, chairs, police barricades, and forcibly asked the EC to declare NDC's parliamentary candidate, Ebi Bright as the winner of the parliamentary contest in Tema Central.

The EC officials were immediately whisked away by the police into one of the offices at the Regional Police Headquarters while officials of both the NDC, and NPP, and the media had to flee to a safe place.

About an hour later, The Tema West Municipal Election Officer, John Nunoo, was led out of the room where the EC officials had sought refuge by some of the leaders of the mob.

He declared Ebi Bright as the winner of the parliamentary election in Tema Central with a vote of 18, 539 as against NPP’s Charles Forson who obtained 18, 421. The independent candidate, Fredrick Aniagyei garnered 207 votes.

Mr Nunoo said the total valid votes was 37, 308 with 141 ballots rejected.  It was only then that the mob agreed to move out and calm was restored.

Mr Forson described as an illegality, the declaration made by the EC official from Tema West stressing that he was not the Returning Officer of the elections in Tema Central.
 
He said the NDC officials who were at the collation centre were only being disruptive having realised they had lost the election. He accused the NDC of mobilising thugs to destroy public property and forcing the EC to declare results that favoured the NDC.

Mr Forson insisted he won the election based on the NPP’s internal analysis of the pink sheets from all the 148 polling stations in the constituency adding that he would go to court over the parliamentary results if a proposed meeting at the EC office in Accra scheduled for Tuesday, December 10, 2024, fail to reverse what he termed illegal declaration made in favour of Ebi Bright.

Tema Central NPP rejects resultshttps://t.co/Xr5ba63YZi pic.twitter.com/HdaXcft9mG

— DailyGraphic GraphicOnline (@Graphicgh) December 10, 2024

Tema Central NPP rejects resultshttps://t.co/Xr5ba63YZi pic.twitter.com/K2rxloQqWh

— DailyGraphic GraphicOnline (@Graphicgh) December 10, 2024

Writer’s email: Benjamin.glover@graphic.com.gh