Amasaman NPP Execs file suit to stop PC from picking nomination forms

Three (3) Constituency executives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), have filed a suit praying the High Court to stop the Electoral Commission (EC) from allowing the NPP’s Parliamentary Candidate for the Amasaman Constituency from picking and filing his nomination forms for the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

The three Plaintiffs, Isaac Owusu Ansah, NPP Polling Station Chairman of Church of Pentecost Abease in the Nsakina Electoral Area, Mohammed Gumah, NPP Polling Station Chairman of the Methodist Church Oduman Nsakina Electoral Areaa and Louis Boakye, NPP youth organizer of the Mayera electoral area, all in the Amasaman Constituency, contend that there is a suit pending at the High Court, filed by Rockson Adu Boahene, challenging the legality and constitutionality of the election of Akwasi Afrifa Mensah, as the NPP parliamentary candidate for the Amasaman Constituency.

To this end, the applicants claim that should the EC allow Akwasi Afrifa Mensah, to pick up forms and contest in the Parliamentary elections, it would ultimately prove detrimental to the New Patriotic Party as a whole if the Court in the pending suit finds his election to be invalid.

The plaintiff/applicants are therefore seeking three reliefs and they are first, “a declaration barring the said Akwasi Afrifa Mensah from holding himself out as the New Patriotic Party Parliamentary Candidate for the Amasaman Constituency until the final determination of Sult No. HR/0041/20”.

Secondly, they are seeking “an order of interlocutory injunction restraining the Defendants (The Electoral Commission of Ghana and the District Director Electoral Commission of Ghana, Amasaman) from allowing the said Akwasi Afrifa Mensah purporting to be the New Patriotic Party parliamentary candidate for the Amasaman Constituency from picking and filing nomination forms to contest the 2020 parliamentary elections in the Amasaman constituency in the manner to be prescribed by the Defendants” and thirdly “an order of perpetual injunction restraining the Defendants from allowing the said Akwasi Afrifa Mensah purporting to be the New Patriotic Party parliamentary candidate for the Amasaman Constituency from picking and filing nomination forms to contest the 2020 parliamentary elections in the Amasaman constituency.

According to the motion on notice for interlocutory injunction document cited by Asaase Radio, the application is scheduled to be moved in court on the 15th of October 2020 at 9 o’clock in the forenoon.

The Electoral Commission opened up its online portal for interested applicants to download nomination forms about 21 days ago and the Commission is expected to receive the completed nomination forms of both Presidential and Parliamentary candidates from the 5th to the 9th of October 2020 ahead of the 7th December general election.