Information reaching InsiderGH.com indicates that Edem Agbana has been declared winner of the just ended Ketu North NDC Parliamentary Primaries.
This comes after a hearing conducted into the events surrounding the parliamentary primaries in Ketu North constituency, and upon establishing that the two ballot papers had serial numbers corresponding to the serial numbers in the ballot booklet assigned to the constituency.
The Committee chaired by the National Chairman, Hon Asiedu Nketiah together with the General Secretary, Hon Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey and the National Organizer, Joseph Yammin, has declared Edem Agbana as the duly elected parliamentary candidate for Ketu North.
Edem Agbana was represented by Edudzi Kudzo Tameklo as his lawyer and Elikplim Agbemava as lawyer for John Adanu.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, May 16, General Secretary of the party, Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey explained that the said unstamped ballot papers were part of the original ballot booklet provided by the party hence there was no over-voting on the day.
“By and large, we got a consensus coming across the table that the ballot papers [in question] were an integral part of the booklet of ballots that came from the national office that went to that constituency. And therefore they were not foreign materials. We also checked and saw that there was no overvoting. The tallying process done by the agents of the candidates tallied with all the ballot papers found in the ballot box.”
“These for us were the pieces of information we wanted to ascertain. So the ballot papers were authentic… Following this, we are of the position that, the will that the voters expressed is the authentic will of the people. That original result had candidate Edem Agbana having 360 votes followed very closely by candidate John Adanu who had 359. Very close as it was, we had to go by the will of the people of Ketu North.”
“So we want to tell you that, at the end of the day, the committee headed by the National Chairman of the NDC, aided by my own self…that the will of Ketu North was that Edem Agbana was the one that won the most number of votes on the day. Even though it was that close, Edem Agbana will be declared the winner,” he stated.
Background
The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana which supervised the Ketu North Parliamentary primary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on 13th May, 2023, had confirmed the election ended in a tie with no winner.
According to Prince Agbemanyah, EC Returning Officer of the constituency in his report to Accra, there was no winner as the two top candidates, Edem Agbana and John Kobla Adanu each polled 358 votes following a recount.
According to the Presiding Officer, Mr. Agbemenyah, when the votes were counted after the election, Edem Agbana was leading by one vote of 360 as against John Adanu’s 359 but an agent called for a recount immediately. When all the ballots were revalidated and recounted, the EC detected 5 ballots were not validated by the stamp of the Electoral Commission which made them invalid based on the rules agreed before the election.
Out of these five, two were cast in favour of Edem Agbana, one was cast in favour of John Adanu while the last two went to another candidate Gabriel Kwame Tanko Atokple. The EC therefore deducted the five invalid votes leaving Kwame Atokple with 174 votes and 358 votes apiece for Agbana and Adanu which the EC officially declared as the result.
More soon.
