It appears the main National Democratic Congress (NDC) is running for cover and seeking attention at the Court of Appeal after the Wenchi High Court rejected its move to amend its original motion in the Techiman South constituency election petition.
The party sought to amend its earlier stance on ‘no collation’ in the Techiman South parliamentary polls, which was rejected by the High Court.
NDC Parliamentary candidate for the 2020 elections and the petitioner Christopher Bayere Baasongti had also insisted there were no documents to show there was collation of election results.
However, following an order by the High Court, which was complied with by the Electoral Commission (EC) on Monday, April 19, 2021, with details of collation and pink sheets to prove otherwise, the petitioner is now seeking to amend his earlier stance.
He sought the dramatic U-turn amendment that “there was collation but it was characterized by inaccuracies”.
Mr Baasongti’s application was for direction even though a motion was surreptitiously filed to amend some reliefs and also change the title of his suit; and this was declined.
According to the petitioner, he wanted to amend the petition to say there was rather no “proper” collation but the court turned down the application and slapped a GH¢500 cost against him.
Dissatisfied with the latest ruling, NDC and its parliamentary candidate have headed to the Court of Appeal to challenge the Wenchi High Court ruling of April 29, 2021.
Portions of the application challenging the High Court’s decision read “Petitioner/Appellant herein being dissatisfied with the ruling of the High Court, Wenchi delivered on 29th April. 2021 doth hereby appeal to this Court on the grounds contained in paragraph 3 herein and at the hearing will seek the reliefs set out in paragraph 4”.
It would be recalled that the NDC after the 2020 polls, dared the EC to produce the collation sheets of the polls in Techiman South, insisting the election was rigged in favour of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and proceeded to the Wenchi High Court to challenge the outcome.
Petitioner, Bayere Basongti prayed the Court to annul the declaration of Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah as the winner of the 2020 Parliamentary Election in the Techiman South Constituency and declare him as the winner instead.
According to him, per the votes counted at all the polling stations in the constituency, he should have been declared the MP-elect.
“That per the pink sheets the petitioner got from his polling agents at each of the 267 polling stations, the petitioner (Baasongti) garnered 50,306 votes in the parliamentary election, while the first respondent (Korsah) got 50,013 votes,” he argued.
The NDC candidate 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 Adjei-Mensah Korsah the winner.
“Up to the date of the filling of the instant election petition, neither the petitioner nor any of his representatives has been invited by the second respondent (EC) or its agents for the collation of the parliamentary results of the Techiman South Constituency,” Mr Baasongti argued.
Among other reliefs, the petitioner sought was an order from the court directed at the EC to collate the results of all the polling stations at Techiman South and also for the EC to publicly declare him as the winner of the 2020 parliamentary election in the constituency.
With the collated results presented to the High Court, it is now clear that the NPP candidate, Mr Adjei-Mensah Korsah genuinely won the Techiman South seat.
He has since been nominated by President Nana Akufo-Addo as a Deputy Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, awaiting parliamentary approval.
