EC presents original documents on Techiman South election to NDC

The Electoral Commission (EC) has presented the original documents on the Techiman South parliamentary election to the Wenchi High Court.
The documents have since been inspected by the parliamentary candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Christopher Beyere Baasongti, who is challenging the results of the parliamentary election in the constituency.

The presentation of the documents to the court followed an order by the High Court.

The documents include the constituency collation sheet.

According to the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, they have since inspected the documents and made photocopies.

He said “the issues we have with the documents have been raised… It is just a simple process of EC producing originals of some documents for our inspection, so we have inspected and made photocopies.”

“The contents will be discussed when they [EC] are in the witness box,” Mr Asiedu Nketia said.

“They have provided us with the documents but we believe there are issues with the documents,” he added.

The case has been adjourned to April 29, 2021.

The court at its last sitting for the second time ordered the EC to produce the documents for the inspection by Mr Christopher Beyere Baasongti.

According to the court, the inspection of the documents were to be done at the Registry of the court on April 19, 2021, between 2pm and 4p.m.

The order was given following the inability of Mr Baasongti to obtain the original documents despite a previous order by the court on April 1 granting him the greenlight to inspect the documents.

Petition

Graphic Online’s correnspondent in the Bono Region, Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah reported that the case was initiated by Mr Baasongti, who filed a petition challenging the election of the NPP MP for Techiman South, Mr Martin Kwaku Adjei-Mensah Korsah.

It is the case of Mr Baasongti that per the votes counted at all the polling stations in Techiman South, he (Baasongti) should have been declared the MP-elect.

The petitioner contended that apart from getting the highest number of votes, there was no collation of the results as required by Regulation 43 of the Public Elections Regulations, 2020 (C.I. 127), but the EC’s returning officer ended up declaring Mr Korsah the winner.

Among other reliefs, the petitioner is seeking an order from the court directed at the EC to collate the results of all the polling stations in Techiman South and also for the EC to publicly declare him as the winner of the 2020 parliamentary election in the constituency.

Source: Graphic