By Mavis Quansah
Tema, Dec. 10, GNA – Mr Charles Forson, the Tema Central Parliamentary Candidate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said the declaration of his contender, Ms Ebi Bright of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), as the winner of the election is an illegality.
Ms Bright was declared the winner by an electoral official at the Tema Regional Police Command as the winner for Tema Central, declaring that she polled 18,539 votes over that of Mr Forson’s 18,421 votes.
Mr Forson, speaking to the media after the declaration, stressed that, “it’s an illegality because, per even the EC’s own rule, only the Returning Officer of the District or the Municipality, or if it’s the President, the EC Chair, has the right to declare results, and there is a specific format, so it’s an illegality.”
He noted that what was declared was not the result, explaining that, “in the process of collating all the results from the pink sheet, we got to the last but three or two, and the NDC opened that because the Returning Officers haven’t signed, but surely all agents have signed the same, and that they were not going to continue with the process.“
He added that, “they invited almost every child in Ghana onto the regional command that is where the collation was being done. They began the whole destruction process. Destroying everything that comes their way: canopies, chairs, windows, everything, and people getting hurt.”
The NPP candidate stated that they were therefore advised that the collation had to be sent to the EC headquarters for the process to continue, adding that “only to hear that they’ve scrambled something on a piece of paper and that the EC officer not from Tema central but a different constituency has announced some results declaring the NDC candidate as a victor.”
Mr Forson claimed that what was announced was not the real figures, as the real one showed that he won the election to continue the good works of NPP, explaining that “With a parliamentary election you don’t need a percentage; it’s just a win. A plus one win is a win, so we’ve won not with one or two or five or three or twenty; we’ve won, and they are all aware.”
He said, “We’ve done the analysis; we’ve given it to our national headquarters; they’ve also done the same.” If you remember, yesterday the general secretary announced at his press conference. The figures are the same; everything on it is the same, but the returning officers did not sign, but that one doesn’t negate the fact that we’ve won the election.”
He said they would take the issue to the national level, indicating that until they are told they have lost the election at that level, the result declared was an illegality.
GNA