SALL residents would have given me more votes – Amewu claims at vetting

John Peter Amewu, the Hohoe MP claims he would have won more votes if eligible voters of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe, and Lolobi (SALL) had voted in the Parliamentary election.

“I sympathise with my brothers and sisters at SALL for not taking part in the parliamentary elections. I went into the elections as a player and not a referee. I did not constitute the rules that were in place for me to come and contest,” Amewu, the Railway Development Minister-nominee told the Appointments Committee on Wednesday, February 24, 2021.

“I just went in as a contestant and unfortunately, for one reason or another, they were not allowed to vote in Hohoe. I sympathise with them, and I would have been very happy if the people of SALL had voted because, in 2004 and 2008, those were my strongholds,” Amewu claimed, adding that “If they had voted, I would have even won with a higher margin.”

John Peter Amewu won the seat with 26,952 votes in his third attempt at becoming the MP for Hohoe while Margaret Kweku, his NDC opponent, polled 21,821 votes.

Background

Eligible voters within areas in Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe, and Lolobi, were only allowed to take part in the presidential election but denied the right to vote in the parliamentary elections with only a few hours to go following a letter issued by the EC at around 9 PM on the eve of the elections.

Residents of the Guan District who were not allowed to vote in the parliamentary elections on December 7, 2020, later filed an ex parte application to demand the enforcement of their fundamental human rights to vote.

The State through the then Deputy Attorney General, Godfred Dame, subsequently filed a motion at the Supreme Court to fight the injunction placed on John Peter Amewu.

The Supreme Court on January 5, 2021, declared as null and void, the Ho High Court’s interim orders of an injunction against the Electoral Commission from gazetting John Peter Amewu as Member of Parliament-elect for Hohoe; and Amewu from parading himself as having been elected Member of Parliament.

Godfred Dame after the Supreme Court’s ruling said: “We are happy and very much satisfied with the directives of the court.”