Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has called on Parliament to summon the leadership of the Electoral Commission (EC) to answer questions on its decision to hold rerun elections in the Ablekuma North Constituency.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament on Thursday, July 3, the Minority leader described the EC’s decision as unfair. He suggested that the Commission was being intimidated to take such a decision.
“We are being told there will be a rerun in some polling stations. It is unfair and unjust. I don’t want to believe recent public comments by a senior politician are what’s pushing the EC, perhaps to secure their job. It is not fair,” he said.
“Maybe today this helps one side, but tomorrow, it could be the other’s turn. Mr. Speaker, I humbly urge that the EC be scheduled to appear before this House. They must explain why, after earlier taking a firm position, they have now changed course.”
Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga argued otherwise, stating that “let us not politicise this.”
“Let us not say that just because a chairman made a statement, the EC has been intimidated,” he said.
This comes after the opposition party, New Patriotic Party (NPP), challenged the Electoral Commission over its decision to hold rerun elections in 19 polling stations of the Ablekuma North Constituency on July 11.
Addressing the press on July 3, the General Secretary of the party, Justin Kodua Frimpong, noted that the NPP will challenge the directive they deem as “whimsical, capricious” in court.
“The NDC knows that they lost the election. We are in the NPP, shall stop at nothing in our quest to ensure that the power that has been respected and upheld by the democratic rights and sovereign will of the people of Ablekuma North, as expressed by them on December 7, 2024, is upheld.”
“Therefore, we have caused our legal directorate to challenge the directive in court. We shall file in court and challenge the whimsical, capricious directive by the EC,” he said.
Prior to the presser, the party’s parliamentary candidate for Ablekuma North, Akua Afriyie, in an interview on Channel One News, noted that the decision is unjustifiable as only three polling stations remained to be declared.
“I am not happy with it. We are not going to accept this decision. My reason is very simple. We have gone through all the collation, and we are at three polling stations for us to complete the collation and declaration, and so what changed? We had the EC coming to Parliament, swearing under oath that we have only three polling stations left, and consistently, that is what it has been so far,” she explained.
The Electoral Commission (EC), after extensive deliberations, noted that it will hold the rerun election because the 19 scanned polling station results used for the collation, though approved by agents of both political parties, were not verified by the presiding officers responsible for those polling stations.
“It is instructive to note that, the Commission was able to secure the Presiding Officers’ verification and confirmation for 18 scanned polling station results—agents of both parties also approved same. A rerun will therefore not be held in those polling stations,” the Commission noted in a statement.
The EC arrived at this decision after it met with the representatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Tuesday, July 1.
The meeting, which was a follow-up to an earlier meeting held on Thursday, 12th June, provided both parties the opportunity to brief the commission on any new developments regarding the said constituency.
The parties informed the Commission that their positions put forward at the last meeting remained unchanged.
The NDC held the view that the election should be rerun in thirty-seven (37) polling stations because scanned pink sheets from 37 polling stations, which were used to collate the results, were provided by the NPP.
The NPP was of the view that the results from three (3) outstanding polling stations be collated and a winner declared, since the NDC agents had verified and confirmed the scanned polling station results they presented.
Ablekuma North remains the only constituency in Ghana without a sitting MP, months after the 2024 general elections, due to unresolved disagreements over the outcome of the parliamentary vote.
On December 10, 2024, three days after the national polls, the EC declared Ewurabena Aubynn of the NDC the winner of the Ablekuma North parliamentary seat, defeating the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Nana Akua Owusu Afriyieh.
However, the EC later revoked the announcement, revealing that results from 62 of the 281 polling stations had not been included in the initial collation.
Efforts to restart the collation in January 2025 were disrupted by multiple challenges.
These included interruptions due to the submission of unverified pink sheets and a violent intrusion at the collation centre that heightened security concerns.
By January 6, only seven polling station results remained uncollated. Yet the process came to a standstill as the EC began engaging both major political parties in an attempt to break the deadlock.
Both the NPP and the NDC have declared victory in the December parliamentary elections.
The NPP maintains that its candidate, Nana Akua Afriyie, emerged the winner based on Electoral Commission figures, while the NDC insists that Ewurabena Aubyn was rightfully elected by the people.
Appearing before Parliament on Thursday, June 19, the Deputy Chairperson of the EC in charge of Corporate Affairs, Dr. Bossman noted the Commission will only resort to a re-run after all measures have been exhausted.
“So, for Ablekuma North, we have not reached the point where we will say we don’t have the results. When we try and we cannot get the results, that is when we will resort to the rerun. The rerun will be a last option,” he said.
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), COP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, warned that the continued delay poses a serious threat to Ghana’s democratic reputation and the integrity of its electoral system.
He cautioned that how the dispute is handled will shape public trust in Ghana’s electoral processes well beyond the current cycle.
“This is a pivotal moment. The way we handle the collation in Ablekuma North will resonate across the country. It will set the tone, not only for this election, but also for public confidence in the years to come,” Dr. Yohuno stated.
Meanwhile, the EC has called on the Ghana Police Service to provide the needed security to ensure a safe environment for the conduct of the election.
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