The Electoral Commission (EC) has suspended the re-collation exercise for the Ablekuma-North Constituency due to a standoff over the authenticity of the results sheets for 21 polling stations.
The Commission suspended the re-collation on Sunday afternoon to allow it time to authenticate scanned copies of the results for the affected 21 polling stations whose hard copies could not be traced by the Commission and the political parties.
The EC on Sunday morning resumed the re-collation of Parliamentary results for four outstanding constituencies.
The re-collation exercise was in compliance with the High Court ruling, ordering the Commission to complete the collation of results for the Tema Central, Okaikwei Central, Ablekuma North and Techiman South constituencies.
While Tema Central has two outstanding polling stations, Ablekuma North had 62, Okaikwei Central had 31 and Techiman South had 147.
Apart from the Ablekuma-North Constituency, the results for Tema Central, Okaikwei Central, and Techiman South, were successfully re-collated and declared.
The EC declared Patrick Yaw Boamah of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as MP-elect for the Okaikwei Central Constituency, while Charles Forson of the NPP was declared MP-Elect for the Tema Central Constituency.
The Commission also declared Martin Kwaku Adjei-Mensah Korsah of the NPP as MP elect for Techiman South.
After hours of collation, the Commission was able to collate the results for 41 out of the 62 outstanding polling station results for the Ablekuma-North Constituency.
Mr Vincent Obeng, the Presiding Officer for Ablekuma-North, said he could not authenticate some 21 scanned results provided by the NPP because he did not have the soft copies to establish the authenticity of the results.
He said the Commission did not have the results because the results sheets were destroyed on the day of collation.
Mr Obeng said it would take the Commission within 24 hours to establish the authenticity of the 21 results sheets in question.
Asked how he would authenticate the 21 polling station results, he responded: “It is my job so leave that to me.”
Reacting to the development, Mr Evans Nimako, Director of Elections, NPP, said the Party was confident that the scanned results in their possession was a true reflection of the results in the contested polling stations.
He urged supporters of the Party to remain calm and respect the rules set out by the Commission to resolve the impasse.
Earlier, Dr Tanko Rashid-Computer, Deputy Director of I.T. and Elections, National Democratic Congress, said the Party would not accept the outcome of the r-collation exercise, describing it as an illegality.
He assured supporters of the Party that it would resort to available legal remedies to overturn the EC’s declarations on Sunday.
Source: GNA
