The National Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Stephen Ayensu Ntim has appealed to the electorate in Assin North to vote massively for the party’s parliamentary candidate, Charles Opoku, in the upcoming by-election.
He made the appeal in an interview with the media when he visited the area to officially outdoor the parliamentary candidate to the entire community.
Chairman Ntim earlier paid a courtesy call on the Chief of Assin Breku, Nana Oduro Basayiadom II, and the people of Assin North Constituency ahead of the 27th June, 2023 by-election.
He praised the government for the massive projects undertaken in the constituency, assuring residents in the area that more developmental projects are in the offing.
The NPP is poised to wrestle the Assin North Constituency seat from the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the high stakes by-election.
The by-election has become necessary after a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court unanimously declared as unconstitutional, the election of Mr. James Gyakye Quayson as MP in 2020.
“Parliament is ordered to expunge the name of first defendant (James Gyakye Quayson) as Member of Parliament for Assin North Constituency,” the court ruled.
The court held that the whole process leading to the election of Mr Quayson – filing of nomination forms, election itself and swearing-in, were all in violation of Article 94(2)(a) of the 1992 Constitution, which bars a person with dual citizenship from contesting as an MP.
The pointed out that as of the time Mr Quayson filed his nomination forms in October 2020 to contest for the Assin North seat, he had not renounced his Canadian citizenship and, therefore, was not qualified per Article 94(2)(a) of the Constitution.
Consequently, the court further held that the Electoral Commission (EC) also violated Article 94(2)(a) of the Constitution when it permitted Mr Quayson to contest the election.
“Upon the true and proper interpretation of Article 94(2)(a) the decision of second defendant [Electoral Commission] to permit the first defendant [James Gyakye Quayson] to contest the parliamentary election of Assin North when the first defendant had not shown evidence of the cancellation of his citizenship of Canada is an act which is inconsistent with and violates Article 94(2)(a) of the 1992 Constitution,” the court held.
The court therefore declared that the election of Mr Quayson as well as his swearing-in as an MP was unconstitutional, null, void and of no legal effect.
