The Electoral Commission has declared the New Patriotic Party’s Walewale constituency parliamentary primary election null and void due to the destruction of some ballot papers.
This action indicates issues with the integrity of the voting process, potentially affecting the fairness and accuracy of the election results.
The North East Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, Gabriel Manu, has therefore referred the decision to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to decide on the way forward since it was an internal party event to select a nominee to contest the December parliamentary election on the ticket of the party.
The primary election will likely need to be rescheduled or rerun to ensure a legitimate and valid outcome. The party was advised to take an immediate decision to fix a new date for the election to be held before the filing of nominations for the December 2024 parliamentary election in the Walewale constituency closes by the end of the week.
Sources say the voting process went smoothly after the venue for the primary had been changed earlier in the day.
During the sorting of ballot papers, after the voting ended around 4 pm, one person snatched some ballot papers and attempted to bolt with them. He reportedly destroyed some ballot papers.
But the police intervened, collected the papers and apprehended the suspect.
Some gunshots were heard, said to have been fired by the police as warning shots in an attempt to maintain sanity.
The suspect is currently in police custody.
According to the EC representative, after examining the ballot papers later at the police station in the night and taking into consideration the ballot papers that were destroyed, the Electoral Commission declared the voting as null and void.
Background
The Tamale High Court last week annulled the NPP’s Walewale Constituency parliamentary primary results and ordered a re-run of the primary.
The court held that the initial election was flawed with irregularities, impersonation and over voting.
In January, Dr Kabiru Mahama, a special advisor to the Vice President, narrowly defeated the incumbent Member of Parliament for Walewale, Hajia Lariba in a tightly contested primary.
The election saw Dr Kabiru winning with 345 votes against Hajia Lariba’s 338 votes.
Unsatisfied with the outcome, the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), on January 27 headed to court to challenge the results, citing electoral irregularities and malpractice.
The NPP then settled on Sunday, September 8, 2024, as the day for the re-run but postponed it to Monday.
Voting was expected to start at 7am but it was delayed as the initial venue was changed from the Walewale Senior High Technical School to the Walewale astro turf and then later to the Walewale Pentecost Church.
A total of 842 delegates were expected to vote.
