We were robbed — PNC cries

Vincent Amenuveve Politics Jul - 09 - 2015 , 02:20

The People's National Convention (PNC) parliamentary candidate in the just-ended Talensi by-election, Dr Michael Wumbeogo Namalteng, has stated that he will apply to the Electoral Commission (EC) for a recount of the votes.

He said if the EC failed to grant his request, he would contest the Talensi by-election results in court.

He alleged that the results "were manipulated and doctored during collation", saying that “all we want is to be given fair results.”

"At one of the polling stations, for instance, one of the eight candidates in the race had zero, but at the collation centre that candidate was given 73. How come?" he asked.

He was speaking with the Daily Graphic yesterday in reaction to the results declared by the EC at Tongo last Tuesday.

"I am looking at the fact that the entire process was fraught with intimidation by the Azorka Boys of the NDC. I can say about 5,000 eligible voters did not vote because they were afraid to do so," Dr Wumbeogo said.

He further stated that "these things are not strange to us because they happen in every election. The NDC and the NPP have engaged in massive intimidation”.

He said as a result of what happened, some residents were peeved and "swore that they would not come out to vote in future elections”.
But the EC says it did nothing wrong in the conduct and declaration of results in the Talensi by-election.

It, consequently, asked anyone who thought otherwise to go to court to challenge the results, instead of resorting to denigrate the commission.
Reacting to the allegations by the PNC that "the results were manipulated and doctored during collation", a Deputy Electoral Commissioner, Mr Amadu Sule, said the party and its officials got it all wrong.

PNC General Secretary

The General Secretary of the PNC, Mr Bernard Mornah, also challenged the results declared by the EC when the commission’s officials were about to declare the final results at the collation centre at the district office of the EC at Tongo last Tuesday night.

According to him, it was clear that "consistently in every stronghold of the PNC there were a lot of rejected ballots" and called for a recount of the ballots.

"I am, therefore, certain that but for those irregularities at polling stations in our strongholds we would have beaten the NPP," he contended.

He indicated that the difference between what the PNC candidate got and that of the NPP candidate was about nine votes.

Mr Wuni Thomas Pearson Duanab of the NPP polled 6,845 votes to come second ahead of the PNC's Dr Michael Wumbeogo Namalteng, who got 6,836 votes.

CPP supports PNC

Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Ms Samia Nkrumah, has expressed support for the PNC’s move to call on the EC to recount the votes in the by-election or else contest the results in court.

A few days to the by-election, she said, the CPP had worked together with the PNC to support the PNC’s candidate the way “we have not seen before”.

“I can assure you that we shall never contest against each other again. We will give Ghanaians a unified Nkrumahist front.

Reacting to the allegations, Mr Sule said the commission was ready to meet the PNC’s candidate in court because it did nothing wrong.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic yesterday, Mr Sule said it was untenable for the PNC candidate's agents to fail to call for a recount of the ballots at the polling stations, only to demand a recount at the collation centre.

"This is a clear contravention of CI 75, which I expected the candidate and Mr Mornah to know," he said.

He explained that by law, the presiding officer was obliged to recount the ballots at the polling centre if an agent demanded so.

"The agent can even ask for a second recount, which the presiding officer can refuse, but in that case it will be brought to the collation centre for recount.

"But in the instant case the agent refused to ask for a recount at the polling station and so I was surprised that they said they were calling for recount at the collation centre. For now only a court can decide," he said.

He indicated that the counting went on at the polling centres in the presence of the party agents, adding that for the first time during the collation, a projector was used to ensure everything was clear to all present.

"They were all seated there and we started doing this for all the 74 polling stations," he explained.

Rejected ballots

Mr Sule said somewhere along the line during the collation there was one polling station whose ballot box came with some rejected ballots.

He said the rejected ballots were taken out but it came out that five of them had wrongly been rejected and they were all consequently accepted, with four going to the PNC and one to the NPP.

"So they were resolved. We continued with the remaining and we finished with the collation," he said.