NDC candidate declared winner in 1996 elections 

The court awarded 1.5 million cedis cost against the Electoral Commission and Mr Isaac Edumadze, the New Patriotic Party candidate who was erroneously declared winner of the election.

The decision of the court followed a petition brought against the Electoral Commission by Dr Enos who was credited with 14,329 votes while Mr Edumadze had 15,660.

Counsel for Dr Enos, Mr Harry Hayford, contended that there were errors in the counting of the votes and that if the results had been added, his client would have had 16,292 votes to win the election.

Mrs Justice Heward-Mills said during the hearing of the petition, the Regional Electoral Officer, Mr S.A. Yirenkyi, admitted that the results he declared in the case were wrong.

Mr. Yirenkyi answered a question put to him by saying ''I accept it was wrong before I declared it"

She said Mr Yirenkyi lacked the courage to correct the error of his subordinates which involved simple mathematical calculations.

The judge said the error was a breach of the law and cannot be attributed to human error.

Mrs Justice Heward-Mills said officials of the Regional Electoral Commission committed breaches of the law since they knew that the results they had declared to their head-office in Accra, were false.

The court found that if the breaches of the law had not been committed, Dr Enos would have been declared the winner.

Mr Hayford said his client would bring an action to claim all emoluments and benefits Mr Edumadze had enjoyed while in parliament.

The court, which began sittings on the matter sometime in January 1997, held 131 sittings.

A spokesman for the NPP said they would appeal against the court's decision.

The decision if upheld will give the NPP 60 seats in Parliament leaving the opposition group with 65 seats in the 200 seat Parliament. This will pave could pave the way for the ruling NDC to amend the constitution as they will then have the two-thirds majority required to effect any changes.

A similar appeal brought by NPP's Ernest Amu against NDC's Rebecca Adotey in the Dadekotupon constituency in the Ashanti Region is yet to be heard after the initial ruling which was in favour Mrs Adotey.

GRi