James Gyakye Quayson of the National Democratic Congress, NDC, has won the Assin-North byelection and was re-elected as a Member of Parliament.
According to the Electoral Commission’s (EC) official results, Mr Quayson won with 17,243 votes, or 57.56% of the valid votes cast, defeating Charles Opoku of the NPP, who received 12,630 votes, or 42.15% of the valid votes cast.
87 votes or 0.29% of the total voted, were cast for Bernice Enyonam Sefenu of the LPG.
The EC reports that 30,418 ballots were cast in total for the Assin by-election. 29,962 votes were cast in total, of which 456 were valid.
74.23% of voters participated.
The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Director of IT, Eric Ntori, had earlier declared defeat and said, “We have lost it all.”
The Assin North Constituency’s parliamentary by-election has been the focus of intense political activity recently.
At 1700 hours, the Electoral Commission declared the polls closed in order to allow the polling places to begin sorting the votes.
In the midst of a dense security presence, a large number of party supporters arrived to watch the counting procedure.
The announcement of the provisional results was received with spontaneous jubilation by supporters of the winner at the polling station.
The polling centres were cordoned off to ward off intruders and ensure the smooth counting of the ballots.
The election took place after the Supreme Court ruled that Gyakye Quayson’s election in December 2020 and swearing-in as a member of Parliament in January 2021 were illegal, invalid, and had no legal standing.
This is due to the fact that he had dual citizenship with Ghana and Canada at the time that he submitted his nomination to run in the 2020 parliamentary election.
The voting procedure went smoothly overall. Two people, however, were detained for allegedly meddling with the voting process.
Source:gbcghanaonline.com
