The opposition National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) hopes of snatching the only parliamentary seat the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has in the Volta Region, has been dashed following the judgment of the Ho High Court, re-affirming Michael Gyato as MP for Krachi East.
The High Court, presided over by Justice Eric Baah, ruled that the petitioner failed to establish a case for cancellation of the results, and dismissed the petition on lack of merit.
According to the Court, though over voting, bribery and other electoral misconduct could be grounds for cancellation of election results, the law did not allow for annulment of the entire constituency results if the said over-voting would not affect the outcome of the election.
Justice Baah therefore charged the Electoral Commission to work on a statutory definition of over-voting ahead of the 2020 general elections, to assist the Court in expeditious handling of such cases, and also urged it to train its workers well in election conduct and management.
He awarded a cost of GHC25, 000.00 against the petitioner in the sum of GHC20,000.00 for the first respondent, and GHC5,000 for the second respondent, the Electoral Commission.
Earlier, counsels for the first and second respondents requested a cost of GHC70, 000.00 and GHC50,000.00 respectively.
The Petitioner, the NDC candidate in the 2016 Krachi East parliamentary elections, Wisdom Gidisu, prayed the court to cancel the parliamentary results of six polling stations in the Constituency on grounds of over-voting.
With the ruling, the current composition stays the same with 106 seats for the Minority and 169 for the Majority.
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By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana with files from GNA