Introduction
On 7th December 2024, Ghanaians went to the polls to elect a new President for the country and Members of Parliament for the 275 constituencies in Ghana. The election was generally reported to be peaceful but as with any election, the results of the parliamentary elections were not acceptable to all parties. As a result, a series of petitions were filed by some of the unsuccessful contestants and one of such contestants is the petitioner in this case Akwasi Adusei, the National Democratic Congress Parliamentary Candidate for the Ahafo Ano North Constituency of the Ashanti Region.
He filed the present petition on 6th January 2025 alleging a lot of irregularities with the collation and final declaration of the results of the Ahafo Ano North Constituency parliamentary elections by the 2nd respondent. He is therefore praying for the court for the following reliefs:
i. A declaration that by reason of the absence of complete, credible pink sheets and ballot papers for the Ahafo Ano North Constituency,
the parliamentary election organised in the aforementioned
constituency is undermined and lacks credibility and fairness and
thus, the 2nd respondent could not have purported to collate, declare
and gazette the 1st respondent as duly elected.
ii. A declaration that the purported declaration and gazetting of the 1st respondent by
the 2nd respondent is void.
iii. An order directed at the 2nd respondent to rerun the parliamentary election at the Ahafo Ano North Constituency.
iv. Any further order/orders the honourable court may deem fit.
After a series of back and forth including an application to set aside service of the petition on the 1st respondent which was granted, counsel for the 1st respondent informed the court in open court that he will accept service of the petition on behalf of his client and the court made an order for the petition to be served in that manner. The record of the court reveals that the petition was served on counsel for the 1st respondent, on behalf of the 1st respondent, on 27th March 2025. Counsel for the 1st respondent entered conditional appearance on behalf of the 1st respondent on 8th April 2025 and followed it up on 9th April 2025 with the present application seeking to set aside the order for security for costs made on 15th January 2025 and a further order to set aside the petition filed on 6th January 2025 as being invalid.
Summary of the 1st respondent's application.
In th
