The NPP General Secretary, Justin Frimpong Kodua, has questioned the credibility of the Electoral Commission’s (EC) decision to rerun elections in 19 polling stations in the Ablekuma North constituency.
He insists the Commission relied on the NPP’s pink sheets to complete collation in the disputed parliamentary contest.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on Tuesday, July 8, Mr Kodua said the party had already informed the EC of its decision not to participate in the rerun, set for Friday, July 11.
He said this decision stems from what he describes as inconsistencies and a lack of transparency on the part of the Commission.
“So the first question we are posing to the Electoral Commission is, when was the collation for Gloryland Hotel done?” Kodua asked.
“You have the list of the 19 polling stations that they formally gave to you, issued by Mr Samuel Tettey, but conspicuously, Gloryland Hotel is not part of the 19.”
He said the EC must explain how it determined that only three polling stations remained uncollated when violence disrupted the process.
“How did the Electoral Commission arrive at the collation that it’s left with three outstanding polling stations?” he questioned, pointing out that collation is not the role of political parties but the statutory duty of the EC.
[embedded content]Mr Kodua expressed doubt about how the EC came to that conclusion without full access to polling station data.
“That’s what I’m asking. How do you work to get the outstanding three that we have done out of the 281? We’ve done 279, remaining three? So that 279, how were they collated for EC to state that there are three outstanding?”
According to him, NPP’s internal systems had already established a clear victory for their candidate.
“The NPP, our modus operandi has been that before we go to the collation centre, we scan all our pink sheets. So we scanned all our 281 pink sheets and collated our results.
“Before we went to the Electoral Commission, we knew our candidate had obtained 34,613 as against the NDC candidate’s 34,199—a difference of 414 votes.”
He referenced chaotic scenes at the collation centre to further underscore his concerns.
“We all saw the drama at Ablekuma North. Ballot papers were burnt where they were kept in a school. At the collation centre, pink sheets were being torn, and officers from the Electoral Commission were dragged and disrupted.”
Mr Kodua revealed that because of the destruction, the EC relied on pink sheets from the NPP to complete some of its collation.
“At that point, the Electoral Commission didn’t even have some of their pink sheets because they were destroyed. So NPP even gave out some of our pink sheets for them to also rely on. These were copies, not original ones, but copies are as good as original because they come from the original.”
He emphasised that the EC kept some of those pink sheets for their own record-keeping.
“So they relied on our pink sheets to call for the collation of some of the polling stations. Some of our pink sheets are with the Electoral Commission because they relied on it and wanted to keep it for record.”
Mr Kodua ended by condemning what he described as a baffling reversal.
“We went through all these processes. So how come you have turned around and made a certain U-turn to run polls again in 19 polling stations?” he asked.
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