The former Member of Parliament (MP) for Fomena Constituency on the ticket of the NPP, Andrew Amoako Asiamah has won the parliamentary seat of the constituency as an Independent Candidate.
He pulled a total of 12,805 votes to win Monday’s Fomena Parliamentary Election.
Mr. Asiamah defeated the NPP’s parliamentary candidate, Mr. Philip Ofori-Asante who got 10,798 votes with the NDC’s candidate, Christina Ama Ranson trailing behind with 2,608 votes.
Another candidate, Eric Appiagyei had 158 votes.
The total votes cast were 26,616 with 26,369 valid votes while 247 ballots were rejected.
Mr. Amoako Asiamah will be returning to Parliament after his seat was declared vacant by the Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye.
The development followed a decision by Mr. Asiamah to contest for re-election as an independent candidate after he lost the New Patriotic Party (NPP) primaries.
The General Secretary of the NPP, Mr. John Boadu in a statement on October 13, 2020, said by contesting as an independent candidate, Mr. Asiamah had forfeited his membership of the party per Article 3(9) of the party’s constitution.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Article 97(1)(g) of the Constitution states that: A member of Parliament shall vacate his seat in Parliament if he leaves the party of which he was a member at the time of his election to Parliament to join another party or seeks to remain in Parliament as an independent member,” Mr. Boadu said.
The party subsequently wrote a petition to parliament demanding for the seat to be declared vacant.
This was accepted by Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Mike Ocquaye.
This is the first time an independent candidate has won the parliamentary seat of the constituency. The New Patriotic Party has retained the Fomena seat since 1996 when parliamentary voting started in the constituency.
The Fomena constituency is considered a stronghold of the NPP for both presidential and parliamentary voting.
Meanwhile, there have been reports of a fire outbreak at the district’s Electoral Commission’s office in the constituency.
The fire outbreak which is reported to have occurred Tuesday dawn, engulfed the EC’s office while ballot counting was ongoing at the collation center which was in close proximity to the burning office. However, the fire has since been quenched with no reported casualties, while the cause of the fire remains unknown as the authorities are still investigating the cause, arson is suspected.
