In a strongly-worded statement, Amorse Blessing Amos, the Greater Accra Regional Youth Organizer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of engaging in a “crude strategy” to entrap the NDC in what he described as an illegal re-collation process concerning the Dome Kwabenya parliamentary election results.
Amorse Blessings claims that the EC, led by Jean Mensah, is attempting to exploit the legal vacuum created by its previous decisions to justify an administrative directive that he argued is not supported by any law.
He asserted that the EC’s actions are a calculated manoeuvre to undermine the NDC’s legal stance and entangle the party in a controversy that could weaken its arguments against similar cases in other constituencies.
“Knowing very well the NPP’s mandamus application shall be heard on Tuesday, she wants to use Dome Kwabenya to trap NDC into her illegal re-collation web. Take note that the NDC’s position is that Dome Kwabenya has already been declared. Once that was done, the EC became functus officio so far as the declaration of parliamentary election results was concerned.”
Amorse Blessing Amos, NDC Greater Accra Regional Youth Organizer
Amorse Blessings strongly asserted that, according to electoral law, the EC’s only remaining duty after a declaration is to gazette the results, allowing aggrieved parties to seek redress through the courts.
However, he alleged that the EC attempted to retroactively legitimise its earlier directive for re-collation through a High Court order that the Supreme Court subsequently quashed.
Despite the ruling, Amorse Blessing noted that the EC is persisting in its efforts to enforce the re-collation, which Amorse contended is without legal merit.
The Alleged Trap
The NDC Greater Accra Regional Youth Organizer, Amorse Blessings Amos warned that the EC’s decision to proceed with the re-collation of Dome Kwabenya results could be a trap designed to compromise the NDC’s consistent position on the issue of re-collation.
He alleged that the EC plans to redeclare the NDC’s candidate, Faustina Elikplim Akurugu, as the MP-elect for Dome Kwabenya, hoping the NDC will accept this outcome.
Such an acceptance, he argued, would undermine the party’s opposition to re-collation in other contentious constituencies like Ablekuma North, Tema Central, Okaikwei Central, and Techiman South, where the NDC has argued that once results are declared, the EC cannot revisit them.
“At the hearing of the mandamus application on Tuesday, the EC’s legal team would accuse the NDC of bad faith for accepting recollation and redeclaration of Dome Kwabenya because the party’s candidate won but challenging other recollation and redeclaration because it went against our candidates.”
Amorse Blessing Amos, NDC Greater Accra Regional Youth Organizer
The statement reaffirmed the NDC’s position that it recognizes only the original collation and declaration made by the returning officer at the constituency level, which declared Elikplim Akurugu as the MP-elect.
Amorse Blessings emphasized that any subsequent re-collation or redeclaration by the EC is null and void in the party’s view, calling it “our back case,” meaning it is a non-issue for the NDC.
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