Kpandai Election Nullification: Facts Don’t Support Ruling- Minority

The Minority in Parliament has criticised the ruling of the Tamale High Court, which saw a nullification of the parliamentary election of the Kpandai constituency.

It comes after the court ruled that irregularities compromised the election’s integrity and ordered the Electoral Commission (EC) to conduct a rerun of the parliamentary election in the entire constituency.

According to the Minority, whose members had until the ruling occupied the seat, stated that the facts did not support the ruling that was delivered.

As such, it said a notice of appeal and an application for a stay of execution have both been filed.

It argued that the Kpandai parliamentary election was conducted in a transparent process with a credible declaration of a result that reflected the will of the people.

“The Kpandai parliamentary election was conducted in a transparent manner. The results reflected the choice of the people. The Minority Caucus remains committed to the rule of law and believes that the appellate process will restore confidence in the democratic outcome delivered by the voters of Kpandai.”

Incidents
According to the Caucus, Hon Mathew Nyindam won the parliamentary election with a margin of 3,734 votes.

“After the NDC secured the presidential results, the NDC parliamentary candidate, Hon Daniel Nsala Wakpal, gathered a group of supporters who arrived at the collation centre in a Mahindra pickup wearing NDC T-shirts.

“They damaged some ballot boxes in an attempt to interrupt the collation. Believing that the Electoral Commission would not have the pink sheets required to complete the declaration. The tension that followed created serious security risks.”

It said this compelled the Electoral Commission to move the final declaration to its regional office in Tamale at a time when all NDC agents had already signed the pink sheets at every polling station across the constituency.

“When Hon Wakpal realised that he had lost the election, he refused to go to Tamale for the collation. The Electoral Commission continued with its work and declared Hon Mathew Nyindam the winner with 27,947 votes, while Hon Nsala secured 24.213 votes.

“Hon Wakpal later challenged the results in court. His case focused on his absence in Tamale and on clerical errors in 41 out of 152 polling stations. During the trial, the main witness for the NDC stated that the total votes in contention were about 500.”

However, the Minority posits that even if the court had awarded all 500 votes to the NDC candidate, he would still have lost by more than 3,000 votes.

Story by Hajara Fuseini

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