Lydia Seyram Alhassan N
OFFICIAL RESULTS declared by the Electoral Commission (EC) has shown that Lydia Seyram Alhassan, wife of the late Emmanuel Kyeremanteng Agyarko, has won the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency by-election on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) with 12,041 votes representing 68.8 percent of total votes cast.
The election held on Thursday, January 31, 2019 within the Greater Accra Region, became necessary to fill the vacancy created in Parliament following the death of her husband who was the NPP’s MP for the area.
At the close of polls which was characterized by several reports of violence and gunshots fired at some individuals, Madam Alhassan was declared winner by the EC.
She beat her closest contender, Delali Brempong of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) whose party said in the early hours of the elections that it was pulling out of the race because its members were allegedly being attacked by members of the vigilante grouping, Invincible Forces which is believed to be aligned to the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Mr. Brempong polled 5, 341 votes representing 30.52 percent of total votes cast.
Aside Madam Alhassan fondly called Maa Lydia and Mr. Brempong, other contestants for the race were PPP’s William Doworkpor who had 102 votes representing 0.38 percent and LPG’s Clement Boadi who garnered 17 votes representing 0.10 percent.
Total votes cast, according to the EC was 17,589, out a total of 88,710 registered voters. There was a reported 19.83 percent turn-out.
Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency is historically an NPP stronghold and the NDC was seeking to end the ruling party’s 22-year’s rule of the area but again it (NDC) crashed after several alleged desperate ploys to discredit the outcome of the election, apparently after preempting defeat.
The NDC’s candidate polled over 5,000 votes even though his party had announced earlier that it was boycotting the election but interestingly its supporters ‘defiantly’ went ahead to vote.
The NDC’s MP for Ningo-Prampram, Sam George was seen in a video being given hot slaps by a security operative, after he had earlier announced on Facebook that several ammunitions were fired at him.
The same Sam George had reported that someone had been shot dead in the residence of the NDC’s failed candidate but it turned out to be a complete lie, as the Police Administration issued a statement later flatly debunking the claim.
Coalition of Domestic Election Observes (CODEO) which deployed observers at the polls praised the performance of the EC but however, condemned the violence that marred the polls.
CODEO in a post-election statement, observed lack of security coordination as well as ‘unnecessary’ heavy security presence at some of the 137 polling stations.
BY Melvin Tarlue