NDC’s 2020 Candidate For Essikado Ketan Explains Her Decision To ‘Run Away’ From Her Own Election Petition

The 2020 NDC Parliamentary Candidate for Essikado Ketan, Grace Ayensu-Danquah has explained the basis for her decision to abandon her challenge of the 2020 election results in that constituency.

After the parliamentary elections on December 7, 2020, at Essikado-Ketan, the Electoral Commission (EC) declared Joe Ghartey of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) the winner with 26,701 votes, while Dr. Ayensu-Danquah garnered 24,527 votes.

The NDC candidate who was dissatisfied with the results, filed a petition at the Sekondi-High Court “1” on January 11, 2021, to challenge the EC’s results and the declaration of the incumbent MP, Joe Ghartey as the winner of the 2020 election in the Essikado-Ketan Constituency.

The court was supposed to complete the Case Management Conference (CMC) by counsel for the petitioner and the two respondents in the case, Joe Ghartey and the EC, during proceedings on Monday, October 30, 2022.

However, it was revealed that the NDC candidate had filed a notice of discontinuation of the election petition.

The court, presided over by Justice Dr. Richmond Osei Hwere granted the petitioner’s application to discontinue the case and struck it out accordingly.

The judge, however, awarded a cost of GHC20,000 against the petitioner explaining that it was a public interest case and that the cost was not to cover all the expenses of the respondents.

Later in an interview, the lawyer for the petitioner, David Ametepey explained that his client’s decision not to continue with the case was to prevent the NDC from being paralyzed in terms of political activities in the constituency.

Dr. Ayensu-Danquah, however, explained that her decision to discontinue the case was borne out of frustrations at the manner in which the case has been allowed to drag on and delay with no end in sight.

Source: GhanaFeed.Com