Techiman South election case on hold till further notice – Asiedu Nketia

The suit by the National Democratic Congress parliamentary candidate for Techiman South constituency, challenging the election results, has been put on hold.

This is because the legal team for the NDC candidate, Christopher Beyere Baasongti, have not been able to serve all parties in in trial against the NPP candidate, Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah.

At a press briefing on Wednesday, the NDC General Secretary, John Asiedu Nketia, explained that the team have not succeeded in serving the Clerk of Parliament despite starting legal processes on January 11, 2021.

The court case had the NPP candidate Adjei-Mensah Korsah, Electoral Commission and Clerk of Parliament as its respondents.

But the NDC MP candidate has decided to discontinue the case against the Clerk of Parliament due to the difficulty in serving upon advice from his lawyers.

“Our case will not hurt that much if we discontinue the processes against them so that we take Parliament out of it and proceed against the Electoral Commission and Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah,” the NDC General Secretary said.

However, the Wenchi High court requested a motion of notice to be served on the Clerk of Parliament before it could strike out the first suit and subsequently serve the two remaining parties.

Counsel for the NDC candidate has expressed disappointment with these developments, according to Mr Asiedu Nketia.

“He believes that these technicalities are intended to unnecessarily delay the case against the intentions of the court and everybody.”

Among other things, the NDC candidate wants the court to declare him as the winner of the parliamentary elections held in December last year.

He also wants the Electoral Commission to be compelled to collate polling station results in the constituency in the presence of the representatives of the candidates.

In his suit, he held that there was no collation of the parliamentary election results for the Techiman South constituency and a declaration was not made on December 8, 2020.

Why Techiman results is in contention?

The NDC insists that the Techiman South Returning Officer did not officially declare the results.

But the NPP has debunked the assertion and put out a video in which the returning officer is seen declaring the results amidst confusion at the venue where the collation was done.

At a press conference in Accra in December, Mr Korsah’s campaign team members were emphatic that their candidate had won the election and showed pink sheets from the various polling centres to buttress their claim.