Sunday, February 1, 2009

COURT TO HEAR AKWATIA ELECTORAL DISPUTE FRIDAY (PAGE 35, JAN 21)

A HIGH Court in Koforidua will from Friday, January 23 start hearing a case in which three parliamentary candidates for the Akwatia Constituency have filed a writ to compel the Electoral Commission (EC) to re-run the elections in all the polling stations in the constituency.
They are Baba Jamal Muhamed Ahmed of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Samuel Abrokwa and Basil Ahiable, both independent candidates.
The three contended that it was not only six polling stations that were fraught with malpractices during the 2008 elections, but the entire polling centres in the constituency and so the re-run should be held throughout the constituency.
The court, presided by Justice Surubarreh, after listening to arguments on the legality of the time frame on some aspects of the trial by Tony Lithur, lead counsel for Baba Jamal and E.O Armah who led a team of lawyers to represent the EC, adjourned the sitting to Friday.
Shortly after the adjournment, groups of people, some of whom were in political party ‘T’-shirts and standing in front of the court building, rained insults on one another, compelling policemen on duty to move in to put the situation under control.
It would be recalled that a group of people seized ballot boxes at six polling stations in the Akwatia Constituency during the elections, making it impossible to declare results in the constituency.
As a result of that, the EC had decided to re-run the elections only in the affected six polling stations, but the complainants want the court to order a re-run in all the 89 polling centres in the Akwatia Constituency.

No comments: