An Accra High Court has granted mandamus applications by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), ordering the Electoral commission to complete collation of results for the Tema Central, OkaiKwei Central, Ablekuma North and Techiman South Constituencies and declare winners of the parliamentary elections in the respective constituencies accordingly.
The NPP, in the mandamus applications, contended that collation of results for the four constituencies had not been completed and that the declaration of the National Democratic Congress’s candidates winners of all the constituencies were null and void.
The party, therefore, prayed the court to direct the EC to complete the processes and declared the results in line with C. I. 27.
The High Court, presided over a different judge, had earlier granted the application by the NPP exparte and declined requests by the NDC candidates to be made parties in the suit.
The NDC, disgruntled by the ruling, filed an appeal at the Supreme Court, which was subsequently granted by the apex court.
The Supreme Court held that the High Court erred by denying the candidates the opportunity to be heard.
It consequently quashed the High Court’s ruling and the declaration thereafter and ordered the court to rehear the case before a different judge and the NDC candidates be allowed to be heard.
After rehearing the case, the High Court, presided over by Forson Baah Agyapong, determined that the collation of the results for the 4 Constituencies were incomplete and the declarations were, therefore, made in contravention of the law.
Making the determinations separately, the court found that the NDC candidate for Tema Central Constituency Ebi Bright was illegally declared winner by someone other than the returning officer, who’s mandated by law, to do the declaration.
The court, again, concluded the process of collation was not complete.
It, therefore, directed the EC to collate the results of the outstanding polling stations and declare the winner accordingly.
For the OkaiKwei Central Constituency, the court also concluded that the collation was incomplete and thus, ordered a completion of the collation and a declaration made based on the completed collation results.
The court arrived at same conclusion with regards to Ablekuma North and Techiman South Constituencies and consequently, ordered for the completion of the processes and declaration of winners in both areas.
The outstanding polling stations to be collated in both Ablekuma North and Techiman South Constituencies are 62 and 147 respectively.
In all cases, the court directed the Inspector-General of Police to provide adequate security to enable the EC conduct the collations.
