Two members of the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly have dragged the Electoral Commission to the High Court over the election of a Presiding Member for the assembly.
The plaintiffs include Napoleon Agyemang Oduro (2nd Plaintiff), an assembly member for Kojokrom Proper electoral area, and Ibrahim Osumanu (1st Plaintiff), an assembly member for Asemensudu electoral area.
They have also secured a court injunction to restrain the Assembly from holding any presiding member election until the final determination of the case.
“Lawyer for the plaintiff/applicant, Abdul Aziz Seidu Esq. shall move this Honorable Court for an order for interlocutory injunction restraining the Defendants/Respondents whether by themselves, their servants, agents, privies, assigns, howsoever described, from holding and /or organizing elections to elect a presiding member for the 9th assembly of the 1st defendant upon grounds deposed to in the accompanying affidavit,” part of the summons indicated.
The assembly has failed to elect a Presiding Member after holding three rounds of election. One of the plaintiffs, Napoleon Agyemang Oduro, who contested the election is seeking the court to compel the Electoral Commission to declare him as the duly elected Presiding Member for the assembly after securing 36 votes.
According to the Electoral Commission, the 2nd plaintiff (Napoleon Agyemang Oduro) failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to declare him as a Presiding Member for the assembly.
According to the Electoral Commission, the assembly constitutes 57 members and a two-thirds majority of that number should be 38 and not 36.
The plaintiffs, however, aver that the fifty-seven (57) members of the assembly include three Members of Parliament who have no voting rights.
They believe if the Members of Parliament are excluded, the total voting population of the assembly will be fifty-four (54) and that the 2nd plaintiff will be declared the winner of the election with the 36 votes secured in the last meeting.
They indicate that since the Members of Parliament have no voting right, they cannot be part of the total number that constitutes two-thirds of votes needed to elect a Presiding Member.
They are also asking the court to direct the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly to recognise and hold the second plaintiff as its duly elected Presiding Member.
Napoleon Agyeman Oduro had in an earlier interview with Nhyiraba Paa Kwesi on Connect FM’s Omanbapa Morning Show indicated his dissatisfaction with the process.
“I don’t need 38 votes, my 36 votes is enough to make me the Presiding Member. The Electoral Commission stressed that we were going to use 54 of assembly members who have voting rights. Assembly members including MCE are 54. So I do not understand why members who do not have voting right will be part of the total number that form two thirds of the entire members,” he stressed.
Read the full writ here.
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