Afari-Gyan challenges petitioners on 22 “unknown” polling stations

Dr Kwadwo Afari GyanThe Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan has challenged claims by the petitioners in the election hearing that “22 unknown polling stations” were not part of the 26,002 polling stations used in the 2012 elections.

According to Dr Afari-Gyan as far as he was concerned, the election results were collated from 26,002 polling stations and nothing more.

Giving evidence-in-chief on Day 26 of the election petition hearing, the EC chairman said having worked at the commission for so long, he does not know all the polling stations in the country and that nobody can also claim to know all.

“And so if you say some polling stations are unknown to you, you will not be strange but if you proceed further to say that because they are unknown they do not exist is wrong”.

The petitioners have referred to some 22 polling stations as “unknown” but Dr Afari-Gyan told the Supreme Court on Monday that the petitioners could not match those stations because in some cases they were using wrong codes and in some cases they were using wrong names.

They claimed they were not part of the original list supplied to political parties by the Electoral Commission and also said there were no codes assigned to those polling stations as had been the practise and accused the EC of an irregularity.

“But my Lords for me, for them to say that they could not match the codes, indicated that they had it and know those polling stations. We have not given out pink sheets since they were given out at the close of polls. So how did they get those pink sheets?” Dr Afari-Gyan asked.

“Are we supposed to think that they got it from the other parties and if they did, it would be strange that the other parties knew of those stations and a big party like the New Patriotic Party did not know about those polling stations”.

The EC chairman said from the pink sheets they supplied there was proof that they sent agents to those 22 polling stations and that the agents did sign those sheets therefore the stations cannot be described as unknown to them, he said.

Dr Afari Gyan said the description of the 22 polling stations by the petitioners has been changing and that in the first instance they talked about extra polling stations and then it became unknown.

“That was not strange to me”, he said.

He said from the pink sheets the petitioners supplied, there was proof they sent polling station agents to the so called “unknown” polling stations and that the agents did sign those pink sheets and collected copies and even in some case more than one person signed on behalf of the New Patriotic Party.