Kpandai Rerun: Supreme Court Fumes Over Absence Of Electoral Commission Representative
The Supreme Court panel hearing the Kpandai election rerun case expressed discontent with the Electoral Commission's absence from the court hearing.
When the case was called today, the President of the five-member panel, Justice Gabriel Pwamang, asked why officers of the Electoral Commission were absent.
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Graphic Online reported that Justice Tanko Amadu was also upset at the commission's absence.
“They don’t consider the actions serious enough? And they are running our election, and they’ll not come to the Supreme Court."
The Supreme Court eventually ordered the Electoral Commission to suspend all arrangements for the rerun of the parliamentary election in Kpandai pending the determination of an application challenging the High Court’s judgment that ordered the rerun.
The rerun was set to come off on December 30.
The judges said this would ensure that the election did not overrun the court in determining a certiorari filed by the New Patriotic Party's Mathew Nyindam, the former Kpandai MP.
The Kpandai seat is currently vacant.
Why was the Kpandai election being rerun?
The rerun order followed a judgment by the Tamale High Court on November 24, after an election petition.
The National Democratic Congress candidate, Daniel Nsala Wakpal, sued to challenge the election of Nyindam as the Member of Parliament for the constituency.
The election petition argued that irregularities during the voting and collation processes affected the credibility of the outcome.
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Wakpal held that there were irregularities and inconsistencies in FORM 8A (Regulation 32 (7) and 39 (2) statement of polls for the office of Member of Parliament for 41 polling stations out of a total of 152 polling stations in the constituency.
Following the successful petition, the Minority criticised the Tamale High Court Judge, Justice Emmanuel Brew Plange, for his handling of the Kpandai election petition, accusing him of bias.
Nyindam has a pending application at the Supreme Court seeking to annul the judgment that invalidated his 2024 election victory.
Nyindam favoured to win election
YEN.com.gh reported that early polls on the Kpandai election rerun have shown a tight race between the NPP and NDC candidates.
An initial survey conducted by Global InfoAnalytics indicated that the NPP's candidate, Matthew Nyindam, leads the poll by four points over his main contender, Daniel Nsala Wakpal of the NDC.
Source: YEN.com.gh
