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Ablekuma North Elections: EC ln a U-Turn

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The Electoral Commission of Ghana, EC, in a u-turn says it will rerun elections in some Nineteen polling stations in the in the disputed Ablekuma North Constituency.

In a press release issued on July 2, 2025, signed by its Deputy Commissioner in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey, the Commission announced that it will conduct the rerun in the 19 polling stations following misunderstanding over the authenticity of the parliamentary election results in the December 7, 2024, General Election.

The latest decision is a sharp departure from the earlier firm position by the Commission’s Chairperson, Jean Adukwei Mensa with her deputies to proceed to declare the parliamentary election results with copies of scanned record sheets (Pinks Sheets) from polling stations without the original Pinks Sheets.

The decision, per the release was arrived at after a follow-up meeting with representatives of the two major political parties, the National Democratic Congress, NDC, and the New Patriotic Party, NPP, held on Tuesday, July 1, 2025.

Dispute erupted in the Ablekuma North Constituency parliamentary election results following concerns raised by the NDC over the use of scanned Pink Sheets from 37 polling stations, which the party claims were provided by the NPP and lacked sufficient verification. The NDC called for fresh elections in 37 stations it had issues with, but the commission declined their request.

Contrary to the NDC’s claim, the opposition NPP, on the other hand, maintained that there were only three outstading polling station results that were expected to be collated to finalize the process, basing its argument of the fact that the scanned Pink Sheets in question were already verified by NDC agents during the process, a claim the EC did not admit.

The Commission in defense asserts that the issue surrounds the fact that the scanned Pink Sheets used to record polling station-level results were used in the collation after physical copies were destroyed when political party supporters besieged the collation centre. After an exhaustive deliberations, EC has taken a decision to rerun elections in 19 of the 37 polling stations, saying though the scanned results from these stations were approved by both party agents, they fall short of authentication by the Presiding Officers.

The remaining 18 scanned results, the Commission noted, were verified by both the agents and the Presiding Officers and therefore not part of those to be rerun.

Whilst the Commission assures the public of its commitment to transparency, fairness, and integrity throughout the process, the Ghana Police Service has also been urged to provide adequate security to ensure a peaceful and fair conduct.

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