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Constitution permits EC to change election verdict – MP

Ben Abdallah Banda, the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Offinso North Constituency has said the Constitution of Ghana permits the Electoral Commission (EC) to amend election results.

Nana Addo and John Mahama

According to him, the EC can change an election verdict if need be adding that it is lawful for the election management body to do so.

His comments come after the EC corrected the mistake announced in the 2020 presidential election results.

After polls and collation, the EC announced that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) won the election with over six million votes, which represents 51.59 of the total votes cast.

John Mahama polled 6,214,889 which represents 47.36% of the total votes cast.

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A statement from the EC after the declaration said the Chairperson "inadvertently used 13,433,573 as the total valid votes cast".

"The total valid votes cast is 13,119,460", adding that the correction in the figures "does not change the percentages stated for each candidate and the declaration made by the Chairperson," it said.

But the MP said the Constitution permits the EC to alter an election verdict.

Keta Richard Quashigah, outgoing MP for Keta speaking on the changes by the EC said "If a result was announced and then you [EC] come back to talk about corrections, I don't think our laws permit that. This abysmal behaviour that has been exhibited undermines the whole process."

Abdallah Banda on his part stated the correction, in any case, does not detract from the fact that the President-elect has won more than 50+1 votes.

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"We are all working with C.I.127 which says that declaration must be done by the Chairperson of the EC but it doesn't forbid the EC if she has honestly detected an error and comes back to correct it," he said.

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