NDC Parliamentary candidate holds press conference

Akwatia, Dec 9, GNA - Baba Jamal, National Democratic Congress (NDC), parliamentary candidate for Akwatia, said on Tuesday that the results released by the Electoral Commission (EC) at Kade were only a collation of a few ballot boxes and therefore not the final result for Akwatia. He said since the other boxes were in police custody and the EC was yet to take a decision on them the result released could be described as provisional.

Mr Jamal, speaking at a press conference at Akwatia, said the Deputy Regional Director of the EC, Mr Eric Mensah Bonsu, had promised to communicate with him on the issue and was waiting for the EC's response. Mr Bonsu said at the end of collation yesterday that the result was provisional and that the EC would decide the fate of the election in the Akwatia constituency. Mr Jamal said there were electoral malpractices at Akyem Wenchi and Apinamang, strongholds of the NPP, where multiple voting took place. He alleged that his party agents were driven from Akyem Wenchi and Apinamang and that enabled the NPP to stuff ballot boxes.

Mr Jamal also alleged that agents of the NPP were responsible for the attacks on polling stations and vandalized strongholds. He said the police searched his room for the missing ballot boxes and they found none but police found a ballot box filled with ballot papers in the house of the vice constituency chairman of the NPP, Mr Frank Anim-Bediako, by the police.

When he was contacted for his side of the story, he said it was true a ballot box was found on the compound of a storey building where he lives with others on the ground floor concealed in a black polythene bag. Mr Anim-Bediako said he had been away for two nights and on his way back home in the night his wife told him on phone that police had found a ballot box on their compound so he went directly to the police station.