Justin Kodua Frimpong
The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) candidate for the Ablekuma North Constituency, Nana Akua Owusu Afriyie has filed an application at the High Court to set aside the decision of the Electoral Commission (EC) to re-run elections in 19 polling stations in the constituency.
According to the application, this decision goes against the January 2025 decision of a High Court which ordered the EC to re-collate the results and declare a winner.
“The respondent (EC) acted in excess of jurisdiction when it decided to re-run 19 out of 281 polling stations in the Ablekuma North Constituency in the absence of any court order varying, vacating and/or overturning a subsisting High Court judgment dated January 4, 2025,” the application argues.
On January 4, 2025, a High Court in Accra presided over by Justice Baah Forson Agyapong ordered the EC to complete the collation of parliamentary results in four (4) constituencies – Tema Central, Ablekuma North, Okaikwei Central, and Techiman South by January 6, 2025.
This followed a grant of an application for mandamus filed by the NPP candidates in the affected constituencies to compel the EC to complete the collation processes in the four disputed constituencies, which were declared in favour of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidates, leading to confusions and misunderstandings.
Three candidates from the NPP – Patrick Yaw Boamah, Okaikwei Central; Charles Forson, Tema Central and Martin Adjei-Korsah, Techiman South, have since been declared winners following the court-mandated collation of results.
The NDC later challenged the High Court’s decision at the Supreme Court, but the case has been adjourned indefinitely as the requirements for the case to be slated for hearing have not been met.
Several attempts to re-collate the Ablekuma North Constituency results have failed due to agitations and misunderstandings between supporters of the two major parties; the NPP and the NDC, leaving the constituency without a representation in Parliament.
On July 2, the Electoral Commission announced that it will re-run voting in 19 out of the 281 polling stations in the constituency, and fixed July 11 for the exercise.
This drew criticisms from many who described the decision as illegal and an afterthought.
The NPP, in particular, rejected the decision and stated that it will not take part in the re-run, and encouraged the EC to complete the collation as ordered by the court and declare its candidate the winner.
The party’s candidate, Nana Akua Owusu Afriyie has mounted a legal challenge, calling for a judicial review of the EC’s decision, which she argues is a grave administrative error.
She also argues that the EC’s decision to re-run 19 out of 281 polling stations is “arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, and wrongful exercise of discretionary power.”
The application is asking the court to quash the decision of the EC to re-run the polls as well as an order restraining the EC from going ahead to conduct the re-run.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak