General News of Wednesday, 10 December 2008

Source: GNA

CPP Parliamentary candidate petitions the EC

Accra, Dec. 10, GNA - The Convention People's Party (CPP) parliamentary candidate for Ayawaso West Wuogon, Mr William Dowokpor has petitioned the Electoral Commission to annul the results of the parliamentary election in the constituency for malpractices in the electoral process.

"I wish to serve notice and notice is hereby served of my intention to go to court to have the outcome of the Ayawaso West Wuogon parliamentary elections annulled for a re-run," he said in a statement issued on Wednesday and copied to the GNA.

"I have incontrovertible evidence, which I believe you also have by now, that there were electoral malpractices and mismanagement of the electoral process in the constituency before and during the polls on December 7, 2008", it said.

According to the statement, one of the EC's Deputy Returning Officers had connived with some party officials to continue with voter transfers well after the official close of the exercise.

The statement alleged that names of some "transferred voters" not in the official transfer register were smuggled in on a supplementary hand written list and they were allowed to vote.

"These, in my opinion, constitute electoral offences that compromised the integrity of the entire electoral process in the constituency, hence my decision to have the outcome annulled for a re-run after the register has been cleaned of the illegal transfer voters," the statement said.