Leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) after a hearing conducted into the events surrounding the parliamentary primaries in Ketu North constituency, and upon establishing that the two ballot papers had serial numbers corresponding to the serial numbers in the ballot booklet assigned to the constituency has declared Edem Agbana as the winner of the party’s parliamentary primaries in Ketu North constituency.
Edem Agbana was declared the winner of last Saturday’s elections after registering 360 votes against his main contender, John Kwabla Adanu, who had 359 votes, but reversed the victory after the EC and some party executives found some unstamped ballots and said it was a tie following a recounting and some ballot papers not being stamped.
The Committee chaired by the National Chairman, Hon Asiedu Nketiah together with the General Secretary, Hon Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey and the National Organizer, Joseph Yammin after addressing the misunderstanding declared Edem Agbana as the duly elected parliamentary candidate for Ketu North.
At a press conference on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, the general secretary, Fifi Kwetey explained that the said unstamped ballot papers were part of the original ballot booklet provided by the party hence there was no over-voting on the day.
“By and large, we got a consensus coming across the table that the ballot papers [in question] were an integral part of the booklet of ballots that came from the national office that went to that constituency.
We also checked and saw that there was no overvoting.
The tallying process done by the agents of the candidates tallied with all the ballot papers found in the ballot box.”
“These for us were the pieces of information we wanted to ascertain.
So the ballot papers were authentic. Following this, we are of the position that, the will that the voters expressed is the authentic will of the people.
That original result had candidate Edem Agbana having 360 votes followed very closely by candidate John Adanu who had 359. Very close as it was, we had to go by the will of the people of Ketu North.”
“So we want to tell you that, at the end of the day, the committee headed by the National Chairman of the NDC, aided by my own self that the will of Ketu North was that Edem Agbana was the one that won the most number of votes on the day.
Even though it was that close, Edem Agbana will be declared the winner,” Fifi Kwetey said.