Politics of Thursday, 23 December 2004

Source: GNA

NDC to challenge results of Offinso North in court

Akomadan (Ash), Dec 23, GNA---The National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Thursday has vowed to challenge the results of the parliamentary election in the Offinso North Constituency in the courts.

Mr Kwadwo Appiah-Kubi, the defeated NDC Parliamentary candidate, told the GNA at Akomadan on Thursday that his party has not accepted the poll results declared by the Electoral Commission (EC) and has consequently asked its lawyers to initiate court action.

"I am convinced that I won the election but was robbed of victory. "

He stated that there were irregularities at 20 identified polling centres and claimed that there were instances where figures changed from polling centres to the collation centre.

"In other cases, the number of ballots cast exceeded actual registered voters at some of the polling centres". Mr Appiah-Kubi said on the basis of those irregularities, his representative at the collation centre refused to sign the results declaration form.

"Surprisingly, the Returning Officer chased after my party's constituency organiser and convinced him to sign the form when he had no authorisation to do that on my behalf."

He said he petitioned the EC for a recount of the ballots on the 10th of December but there had not been any response from the Commission.

"We are not prepared to give up the fight. We are going to fight on until justice is done," he added.

The EC declared Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku, the NPP Candidate, winner of the poll with 13,389 votes while Mr Appiah-Kubi had 12,999 votes.