The High Court has dismissed an application by Nana Akua Afriyie, the NPP’s 2024 parliamentary candidate for Ablekuma North, seeking to halt a planned rerun of parliamentary elections in 19 polling stations within the constituency on July 11, 2025.
The motion for interim injunction was dismissed for being “unmeritorious” by Justice Ali Baba Abature, who ruled that the balance of convenience favours the EC’s constitutional duty to ensure representation for the people.
The applicant had argued that the EC’s actions contravened a binding High Court ruling from January 4, 2025, which directed the Commission to complete the collation of 62 outstanding polling station results and declare a winner for the December 7, 2024, parliamentary election.
In court, NPP’s legal counsel, Gary Nimako, asserted that following the January ruling, the EC itself acknowledged in multiple public communications, including a press release dated January 27, 2025, and a parliamentary briefing by Deputy EC Chair Dr. Bossman Asare, that only three polling stations remained uncollated.
Nimako argued that this decision to rerun 19 polling stations was not only unjustified but a direct affront to the court’s authority.
He emphasised that every polling station’s results, or “pink sheets,” had already been certified by party agents and presiding officers at the time of the election, making a rerun both unnecessary and unlawful.
“A rerun can only occur if there is a tie,” he argued, referencing Regulation 42 of the Public Elections Regulations, 2020 (C.I. 127), which prescribes a rerun only in the case of an equality of votes, a condition the EC has not claimed.
Afriyie’s legal team argued that the EC, if facing challenges with executing the January 4 judgment, should have returned to the High Court for clarification rather than unilaterally opting for a rerun, which they characterised as a contemptuous act.
Though the EC was not present to respond as the motion was filed, Ex parte, Justice Abature questioned whether the applicant had shown that the results could legally be collated without further verification by presiding officers, something counsel failed to establish clearly under the provisions of C.I. 127.
In his ruling, Justice Abature stated that the EC holds the constitutional mandate to conduct elections, and any delay in allowing the rerun would deprive the people of Ablekuma North of their right to representation in Parliament.
“After a careful and painstaking reading of the applicant’s motion paper, affidavit in support, statement of case as filed, as well as the supplementary affidavit… the application for injunction against the respondent is dismissed as unmeritorious,” Justice Abature ruled.
He added that the EC, as a state institution, would be in a position to compensate the applicant with damages if she is successful in her substantive legal challenge.
