The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has welcomed the High Court ruling ordering a fresh parliamentary election in the Kpandai constituency, insisting the judgment confirms long-standing concerns about electoral manipulation by some officials of the Electoral Commission.
Speaking after the court proceedings, the Deputy Director of Elections and IT for the NDC, Rashid Tanko Computer, said the party had been vindicated.
“All along, the NDC has been saying that there are several crooked electoral officers who are bent on stealing people’s mandates. And one of these is what has been exposed today. We said it time and again that the seat of Kpandai was the seat for the NDC. They rigged the election, and we’ve been saying it time and again that we will continue to expose crooked electoral officers who will continue to rig elections.”
Mr Tanko said the NDC’s challenge was grounded in the law, particularly CI 127, which outlines the rules for parliamentary collation.
“Clearly, the CI127, if you look at Regulation 43, 1A up to H, spells out how collation of parliamentary elections is done. You collect results based on two forms we have, Form 1C and then Form 1D. You assemble the results from 1C and then put the summaries on Form 1D and declare the results. This was not done.”
According to him, the Electoral Commission officials instead “organised themselves, ran to Tamale, cooked some results and announced Nyindam as a parliamentary candidate-elect.”
He said that the NDC relied strictly on lawful processes to secure the court victory.
“The NDC is the most lawful political party in Ghana. We didn’t use lawless means to get this verdict. We made sure that we followed through the process, and we have gotten a favourable judgment.”
He went on to warn the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) against contesting the upcoming by-election.
“I can assure you, we are appealing to our opponents, the NPP, they shouldn’t come for the by-election because we will hand them some heavy defeats. If they still want to have some kind of respect for the good people of Ghana, they should chicken out like they chickened out in Tamale Central.”
He added that the NDC was ready for the fresh poll at any time.
“We are going to prepare. We’re giving them 30 days. We are ready, even tomorrow. We are going to make sure that the seat will return to the NDC.”
He also thanked residents of Kpandai for their patience, assuring them of continued support.
“We are grateful to the Kpandai people for their patience. We assure them that His Excellency John Dramani Mahama will continue to do the good deeds for them.”
Lawyer for the NDC’s Daniel Nsala Wakpal also welcomed the ruling, describing the case as straightforward.
“For us, our case before the court was very simple. We had a rogue electoral commission district electoral officer who decided to abuse discretion.”
He said that candidates have clear rights at the collation centre, including the right to request recounts and challenge irregularities. However, he explained that these rights were violated when the collation centre was moved without notifying the candidate.
“You don’t relocate the district or redesignate the collation centre without notice to the participating candidates. The failure to notify the petitioner of the relocation meant there was no way he could have participated in the collation or exercised his rights.”
He also rejected claims made in court that the petitioner caused disturbances.
“When the district election officer was put in the box, he could not even point to his own videos to show that indeed the petitioner had done any of those things.”
He said the destruction of the biometric verification system and other serious irregularities made a rerun the only fair remedy.
“The only alternative would be to rerun the election and so we are very happy that the court has ordered that within 30 days the election should be rerun. The power and the sovereignty lies with the people.”
He added that the NPP candidate could not legitimately claim the seat.
“You cannot be a beneficiary of such an incident and call yourself an MP. That is out of the question.”
