Fast Track High Court Allows NPP Candidate To Amend Petition

The Accra Fast Track High Court has granted leave to the New Patriotic Party candidate for Ablekuma Central, Ebenezer Gilbert Nii Narh Nartey, to amend his petition challenging the results of the 2012 constituency Parliamentary elections. Granting the amendments, which he was required to file before the court on July 29, together with pink sheets to be relied on in the case, the court awarded a cost of GH₵300 against Mr. Nartey. Per the amendments, Mr. Nartey is seeking to annual a total of 25,340 votes which he claims the National Democratic Congress candidate in the constituency, Chaie Tetteh Theophilus, benefited from. He is contending that upon annulling the votes, he would then become the winner with a total of 36,087 votes with Mr. Tetteh getting 31,445 votes. In the original petition, he had sought to nullify a total of 13,170 votes and wanted the High Court to deduct same from the 10 parliamentary candidates who contested the elections in the constituency. When the case was called on Friday, Mr. Ayikoi Otoo, counsel for Mr. Nartey, prayed the court to grant their application which sought leave from the court to amend their case, in view of the fact that �on the face of the pink sheets, the figures have changed again�. He said they were ready to file the amendments on Monday. Touching on the pink sheets to be relied on in the case, he said the difficulty is the stamping of each pink sheet by the Commissioner for Oaths, but said that had been resolved and would file it on Monday. Mr. Eric Atieku, counsel for Mr. Tettey, did not oppose the grant of leave to Mr. Tettey, to amend his case since the amendments bothered on just figures. Earlier, he had prayed the court to adjourn the hearing of the application in view of the fact that he was short-serve with the application and also because the first respondent in the case, the Electoral Commission, was absent in court. However, the court presided over by Justice U.P. Dery, asked Mr. Atieku to speak for his client and not the EC. The case stands adjourned to tomorrow. The petitioner seeking to annual the results cited various reasons, including over-voting, voting without biometric verification and lack of certification of the results, among others, which did not comply with the Constitution, PNDC Law 284, as well as the public Elections Regulations (C. I. 75). Mr. Nartey is claiming there were over-voting at several polling stations in the Ablekuma Central constituency, where valid and rejected ballots exceeded the number of ballots issued to voters. �The unique code assigned for each polling station was duplicated in some polling stations,� he claims, adding that contrary to C. I 75, �there was no biometric verification during the voting in several polling stations�. Further, he is claiming that the presiding officers of several polling stations in the constituency failed to certify the results when they failed to signed. Mr. Nartey averred that there were widespread instances where the words and figure of voters cast as recorded on the pink or blue sheet did not tally, thus raising doubts as to which results were actually recorded. In view of the claims, he is urging the High Court to scrutinize the collated figures leading to the declaration of his contender as the winner of the elections, adding �it would become clear that the second respondent was not successful at the election. He said failure to comply with the constitution and C.I. 75, meant that the elections were not conducted in accordance with the law and that the failure affected the final results of the election. Consequently, Mr. Nartey is praying the court to declare him as the winner of the Ablekuma Central Parliamentary election.