Joe Anoakye, the Director-General of National Communication Authority (NCA), has given indication that, the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) fight with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) over the Techiman South constituency parliamentary seat is a fruitless exercise by the governing party.
According to him, while his party has the collated presidential results, the Parliamentary results are a “big challenge because the Parliamentary candidates manage that and often times it is difficult to get our Parliamentary numbers”.
Mr Anokye, who spoke on Paul Adom-Otchere’s Good Evening Ghana show on Metro TV on Tuesday, said the NDC’s John Dramani Mahama, won with 51,403 votes as opposed to a little over 46,000 votes for the NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo.
However, “there is a big challenge with Parliamentary results. Parliamentary are very low, so typically the PCs manage that so often times it is difficult to get our parliamentary numbers.
A good number of our parliamentary sheets are not in”.
The NPP, has insisted it won the Techiman South constituency seat in the Bono East Region, saying the party even provided the Electoral Commission (EC) with the Pink Sheets to assist with the declaration of the result in favour of the NPP’s Martin Adjei-Korsa.
Interestingly, the arrangement has always been that the political parties are given Pink Sheets by the EC and not the EC begging for pink sheets from a political party as happened in this case.
Addressing journalists last Friday, a former Municipal Chief Executive of Techiman municipality, Prince Yaw Donyina, had refuted claims by the NDC that the governing party, does not even have its own Pink Sheets for the constituency provided by the EC.
The NPP, insisted there is no iota of truth in the NDC claim, and brought out a brown envelope containing the said Pink Sheets for the media to see.
He said the claim that the NPP did not have the Pink Sheets, should be disregard, as they have all their documents intact.
In a haste to dispel and defend the NPP, the ex-MCE revealed the unthinkable, that his party, rather provided the EC with Pink Sheets.
The NDC, has rejected, the declaration, saying it had all the Pink Sheets and only wants the collation to be redone by the EC.
The party led by its General Secretary, John Asiedu Nketiah, Lt. Col Larry Gbevlo-Lartey, Peter Boamah Otukunor, Baba Jamal, Kojogah Adawudu among others, have visited both the constituency and the regional offices of the EC to get the pink sheets from which the NPP’s Martin Adjei-Korsa was declared winner of the poll, but they were not given.
Mr Anokye’s revelation that the NPP has a big challenge with the Parliamentary result, could just be the reason why the EC officers, were unable to supply the NDC with Pink Sheets from which it declared the NPP parliamentary candidate the winner.
The NCA boss is on the NPP election committee, and his revelation on Metro TV, cast a huge doubt over the authenticity of the NPP Pink Sheets.
When asked by Paul Adom-Otchere whether EC boss, Jean Mensa, was referring to Parliamentary result or Presidential result from Techiman South, when she said the results were not in, Mr Anokye, responded as far as he was aware, there was an issue with one polling station, but he was unsure which of the results she meant.
Meanwhile, the NDC’s resilient had enabled Kwame Twumasi Ampofo to win the Sene West seat for the party by a difference of 16 votes after a legal challenge held up the counting of ballots and collation of results for over a week.
He polled 13,116 with Joseph Markay Kuma of the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) 13,100 votes, while Ceasar Fomekah of the National Democratic Party (NDP) came in third with 191 votes.
A whopping Six hundred and sixty votes were rejected.
The NDC, has since turned its attention towards Zabzugu seat where a video has emerged showing the returning officer and the NPP candidate, secretly changing figures at an unknown location to hand over the seat to the ruling party.
Reports are that after the results were declared for the NDC in the full glare of the public, the party went busily jubilating, and the EC officer went into hiding and changed the result in favour of the NPP.
The NDC is sure to retrieve the seat by insisting on a proper collation.
The NDC is also insisting the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Constituency, in the Western Region was declared in favour of the party, but strangely handed over to the NPP’s George Mireku Duka, after some numerous recounts.
They insists it won the Sefwi-Wiawso constituency in the Western North Region, as well as the Essikado Ketan Constituency, Western Region, and will fight to take them back.
The NDC again, insist it will take back all these seats from the NPP to establish a majority in Parliament.
Yesterday’s counting was supervised by the EC officers in the company of Dan Kwaku Botwe of the NPP and NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, among others.
The NPP representatives, called for a re-collation of the results which delayed the certification.
Sene West, was the only outstanding seat in the Parliamentary elections which had seen the NPP win 137 seats in Parliament, whilst the NDC, has 136 seats.
The NDC’s victory raises its seats in the eighth Parliament to 137.
The Sene West election results were delayed, because Mr Kuma, sought an injunction against the election results over claims of irregularities with the electoral process.
A man snatched a ballot box from the Tato ‘A’ polling station in Tato Bator.
But in court on Thursday morning, the Presiding Judge, His Lordship Justice Frederick Nawura, struck out the NPP’s case and directed that the Electoral Commission be allowed to do its work.
Meanwhile, there was a near clash yesterday between supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and officials of the Electoral Commission (EC) in the Zabzugu constituency of the Northern Region.
This was after the NDC supporters stopped the commission’s officers from taking Biometric Verification Devices and some collated papers from the Zabzugu EC office.
It took the intervention of the King of Zabzugu, Zelzol Lana Alhassan, who pleaded with the Military and the EC to allow peace to prevail.
This is the second time the EC in the area has been prevented from picking the materials from the office.
“The Regional EC director was coming. Our people had already been hanging around the EC office to see what they were up to,” the Election Director of the NDC in the area, Bawa Shahadu, narrated to Citi News.
“The EC officer for Tatale came there for the BVD [Biometric Verification Devices] machines. We walked up to him to stop him on the basis that our concerns over the results had not been addressed.”
The NDC supporters embarked on a demonstration on Monday, December 14, 2020, demanding the re-collation of the constituency’s parliamentary results.
They said that the parliamentary results were collated in their absence, followed by a declaration of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate as the winner.
Mr Shahadu, said they would not accept the NPP candidate as the legitimate winner until their concerns are addressed.
NCA boss, Joe Anokye casts doubt on NPP’s Techiman South victory claim
