General News of Friday, 13 December 2024
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
One of the major fallouts from the 2024 Election has been the chaos at the Nsawam-Adoagyiri Constituency, where both candidates for the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress are refusing to accept the outcome of the December 7 polls.
Initial reports of the NDC candidate Amenorpe Philbert Fummey winning the polls were quashed, with the NPP candidate and incumbent MP, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, declaring himself the winner of the polls.
In a bid to bring finality to the matter, the Electoral Commission set up a re-collation center at the Tesano Police Station in Accra, but that process has been halted by an interlocutory injunction secured by the NDC.
While some constituencies in the Greater Accra, Eastern, and Bono East Regions are facing similar issues, that of Nsawam-Adoagyiri has gained national attention due to the status of Frank Annoh-Dompreh as one of the leaders of the 8th Parliament.
So, what’s happening at Nsawam-Adoagyiri?
NDC claims victory
In the early hours of Sunday, December 8, news broke that the NDC candidate in the area had won the elections.
While no figures were given, the victory of the NDC candidate was reported by multiple media platforms.
The victory claim by the NDC candidate and his supporters was based on the collation of the results from the polling stations, which had placed him significantly ahead of Annoh-Dompreh.
What changed?
Their celebrations were short-lived as the NPP candidate and his supporters later sent out reports that they had also won the election.
The new decision was arrived at after the presiding officer said he had noted some anomalies on the collation certificate.
Nana Oduro Numapau, Deputy Eastern Regional Director of the EC, in a CitiNews interview, explained that the mistake was noted after both parties had exited the collation center, with collation certificates given to them by the presiding officer.
“When the presiding officers detect a mistake, they must correct it with a blue pen. If they don’t see it and it gets to a higher authority, which is the returning officer, and he sees it, he also has the right to correct it, but in his case, he must use red. If he also makes a mistake, the same correction must be done. We are dealing with figures, and definitely, there will be mistakes. Unfortunately, the person after the elections gave copies to the political parties, and they left. The person came to the collation center and realised that he made a mistake and made corrections, so what he gave to the parties will definitely be different. Fortunately, what he gave to the parties is the same,” he said.
Why NDC is not accepting EC’s clarification
The Eastern Regional Youth Organizer of the NDC, Nathaniel G. Tetteh, said that his party is unable to accept the EC’s explanation because it was not involved in the process of correcting the errors.
“There is a contention for a particular district where the figures for the NDC duplicate match with the NPP duplicate, but figures from the EC have been altered without recourse to the parties, and they want us to accept it as genuine mistakes. How do we accept these results when we were not there when those corrections were made? If you finish a process and you give information, the information on the duplicate must reflect what is on the original paper. The ballot accounting figures have been altered,” he said.
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NPP Eastern Region speaks
The Eastern Regional chairman of the NPP believes that the EC did nothing wrong by correcting the errors.
“The genesis of the matter is that when the elections were done, the presiding officer at the polling stations took copies and gave them to the political parties, so both parties have the same copies.
“However, the presiding officer got to the collation center and realised that there were mistakes on the ballot accounting side of the pink sheet, and the law allows them to correct it. In my mind, the PO came to the collation center and realised that there was a mistake and at the time had given duplicates to our agents who had gone home,” he said.
Resolution on Thursday
CitiFM reports that on Thursday, December 12, 2024, representatives of both NPP and NDC agreed to the re-collation of results, with pink sheets of over 80 polling stations being excluded from the process.
NDC injuncts re-collation, seeks new election
On Friday, December 13, 2024, the NDC secured an interlocutory injunction on the re-collation process.
As a result, the collation has been halted, pending the hearing of the case.
The NDC has also sued the EC, praying the Accra High Court to order fresh elections.
EK/AE
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