The Member of Parliament for Upper Manya Krobo, Jeff Tetteh Kavianu, is calling for investigations into the ‘No’ votes recorded against President John Dramani Mahama in the constituency.
The Upper Manya Krobo constituency recorded the highest ‘No’ votes against the President in the Eastern Region in the just ended Parliamentary and Presidential Primaries. A total of 948 persons voted against the president's candidature in 2016.
Upper Manya is one of the strong holds of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Eastern Region, hence, the Member of Parliament wants the National Election Directorate of the NDC to investigate the matter because, he believes that, non-NDC members who infiltrated the register with the help of some aspirants led to what he called votes against the President.
According to the lawmaker, the signs were clear on the wall that some non-NDC members were on the register, however, when the red flag was raised against it by his campaign team, the election directorate of the party refused to expunge the names.
“It is very shameful and disgraceful to me and the entire constituency that we recorded such votes against the president, how can a strong hold of the NDC record such votes against the president? My campaign team raised this issue that some non-NDC members have been registered by my opponents so they must be expunged but nothing was done, you see the disgrace they have brought to us?” the Lawmaker lamented.
In the Eastern Region, out of the 107,749 2 that voted, 100, 200 (94.52%) voted YES, while 5,812 (5.48%) voted No. The number of rejected votes were 1,737 5 and total valid votes cast were 106,012.
Meanwhile, there is tension in the constituency as supporters of Bismark Tetteh Nyarko, a close contender of the MP in the just ended election have poured on the streets since Sunday to express their displeasure against the results.
Mr Nyarko has rejected the outcome of the election alleging that the results were massaged.
He also alleged that due to the rigging, the results of the election were not properly declared since a non-official of the Electoral Commission (EC) declared it without the presence of the candidates’ representatives.
The results made available by the EC indicates that the lawmaker won by securing 2,719 votes as against,475 votes for Azu Tetteh Raymond and 2,589 votes for Bismark Tetteh Nyarko.
But, supporters of Mr Nyarko believe that results from three polling centers that arrived late without the company of the police were massaged which changed the results.
According to him, he has petitioned the party executives in the region, however, if nothing is done, he will head to court to seek redress.
In an interview with the Daily Heritage, the MP refuted the allegations of stolen verdict explaining that the declaration of the results was done at the polling centers with the participation of agents of the three aspirants. Therefore, results declared were the results collated; hence, the figures were not massaged. He entreated his aggrieved contender to go to court to seek redress if he has evidence of rigging.
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