Rocky55 Blog of Monday, 6 January 2025
Source: Isaac Appiah
After the Electoral Commission (EC) reviewed the results, Patrick Yaw Boamah, the member of parliament for Okaikwei Central, formally kept his seat. Baba Sadiq, a candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), received 19,368 votes, whereas Boamah, who was running for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), received 21,099 votes. This confirmation comes after a High Court order that the EC finish compiling the results for a number of seats by January 6, 2025, including Okaikwei Central, Tema Central, Ablekuma North, and Techiman South. Following a number of challenges by NPP candidates, the court had already ordered the EC to complete the results, pushing the completion of unfinished collations.
With 18,870 votes, Charles Forson of the NPP had already been proclaimed the victor by the Tema Central results, narrowly defeating Ebi Bright of the NDC, who received 18,815 votes. There were 37,894 legitimate votes cast in Tema Central, and 144 ballots were invalidated, making 38,038 total votes cast. The court determined that the EC had not announced the results for all 141 polling stations in the Okaikwei Central case, as only 110 stations' results had been disclosed. The cases were presided over by Justice Forson Agyapong, who decided that in order to make an accurate and comprehensive declaration, the missing results should be included in the final total.
The NPP candidates' mandamus applications, which claimed that the EC had not fulfilled its public duty by finishing the collation process, were the basis for the court's decision. Justice Agyapong underlined that applicants must demonstrate that there was significant harm as a result of the duty's failure. His decision guarantees that the final declarations would now include all unresolved polling station results from Okaikwei Central and other impacted constituencies.