The National Democratic Congress (NDC) leadership has crowned Edem Agbana the winner of the party’s parliamentary primary in the Ketu North constituency of the Volta Region.
This was revealed today, Tuesday, May 16, 2023, by the NDC’s General Secretary, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey.
Following a tie in Saturday’s primaries between the two top contestants, Edem Agbana and John Adanu Zewu, there was confusion.
Edem was proclaimed the winner by a single vote at first, but after two recounts, the EC discovered three ballot papers that were not stamped.
Two of the three unstamped ballots were cast in favor of Edem Agbana, while one was cast in favor of John Adanu.
In an earlier declaration, Edem asserted that he was the winner, despite the fact that the election management agency, the election Commission (EC), had not pronounced him such.
Fifi Kwetey revealed at a news conference on Tuesday that the unstamped ballot papers were part of the initial ballot booklet issued by the party, so there was no over-voting on the day.
“By and large, we got a consensus coming across the table that the ballot papers [in question] were an integral part of the booklet of ballots that came from the national office that went to that constituency. And therefore they were not foreign materials. We also checked and saw that there was no overvoting. The tallying process done by the agents of the candidates tallied with all the ballot papers found in the ballot box.”
“These for us were the pieces of information we wanted to ascertain. So the ballot papers were authentic… Following this, we are of the position that, the will that the voters expressed is the authentic will of the people. That original result had candidate Edem Agbana having 360 votes followed very closely by candidate John Adanu who had 359. Very close as it was, we had to go by the will of the people of Ketu North.”
“So we want to tell you that, at the end of the day, the committee headed by the National Chairman of the NDC, aided by my own self…that the will of Ketu North was that Edem Agbana was the one that won the most number of votes on the day. Even though it was that close, Edem Agbana will be declared the winner,” Fifi Kwetey added.
