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The Deputy Director of Elections and IT of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Tanko Rashid, Computer, has expressed surprise and disappointment over the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) legal challenge concerning the Ablekuma North parliamentary election results.
He described the NPP’s court action as “vexatious” and “unmeritorious,” arguing that the party had full knowledge of the electoral process and outcome prior to the Electoral Commission’s (EC) official announcement. He drew parallels to the case of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe, and Lolobi (SALL), which lacked parliamentary representation for four years after the 2020 elections.
“What they filed in court was vexatious, and I’m not surprised the judge says it was unmeritorious. Why were they doing this? Why were they trying to injunct a process in which, for about 184 days, these people are not represented? Is that the interest of the NPP? Is that what they did? You remember what happened in 2020, after the 2020 election? For four years, SALL didn’t have a representation. Is that the kind of democracy you want to party in?” He stated.
According to him, the NPP was fully involved in all Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) engagements and other processes that led to the identification of 19 polling stations at the heart of the dispute.
He further revealed that the whole issue surrounding the misunderstanding of the Ablekuma North Parliamentary election results stems out of 62 polling station results, which was later narrowed down to 37 after the NPP provided 25 carbon copies. However, he said the NDC rejected the use of scanned results from the NPP, citing credibility concerns.
“Look, this matter, I’m surprised they even went to court. Several IPAC meetings, the last one which we managed to resolve and ended up with this 19 polling stations, the NPP participated in each of these processes. They knew the outcome of the decision even before it was announced.
“The whole thing started from 62 polling stations, not even 37. And that’s what I’m saying that a lot of people are not privy to this information. That the matter is not even about 37; it’s about 62 polling stations.
“After the December EC declaration, we ended up having problems with 62 polling stations. So when it came back around December 24th to do the re-collation, at that point, when all of us agreed that we didn’t have a pink sheet, interestingly enough, the NPP had 25 carbon copies. Our problem was scanned copies, not carbon copies, because carbon copies are given to political parties at the polling station. So if your opponent has a carbon copy, it’s as good as you also having the same, so you can defer to them. So when they brought in 25 carbon copies, that brought it down to the 37 from the 62.
“We accepted this and said fine, we have no problem. Since the 25 is part of the 62, take it out. Collate that one. They did that. Then we were now left with 37, which is their scanned copies. They brought the scanned copies. That’s why we had issues with them and said the 37 we are not going to agree to any scanned copies because we can’t trust NPP.” He explained
He commended the Electoral Commission for its approach during the verification process and questioned the NPP’s motives for going to court after such extensive engagement and consensus.
“When they brought their 37 scanned copies, the Electoral Commission were being magnanimous. In fact, they also did something good at that point, although we had difficulties with them.
“They called their Presiding Officers to come and authenticate the scanned copies. We had issues with it; we thought the Presiding Officers could have been compromised, but the EC stood its ground. Interestingly, only 18 of them were able to authenticate the 37 they brought, saying that these 18 are from us. We conducted the election. These are the results. Actually, what you brought are correct.”
Source: Elvisanokyenews.net
