Gyekye Quayson Wins Assin North By Election

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Candidate for Assin North, James Gyakye Quayson has won the By-Elections.

He secured 17,245 votes representing 57.57% while his opponent, Charles Opoku of the NPP had 12,630 votes representing 42.15%

The Assin North seat became vacant after the Supreme Court on Wednesday, May 17, unanimously declared unconstitutional the election of James Gyakye Quayson as the MP for the area.

The court held that the whole process leading to the election of Mr Quayson – filing of nomination forms, election itself and swearing-in, were all in violation of Article 94(2)(a) of the 1992 Constitution, which bars a person with dual citizenship from contesting as an MP.

It was the considered view of the court that as of the time Mr Quayson filed his nomination forms in October 2020 to contest for the Assin North seat, he had not renounced his Canadian citizenship and, therefore, was not qualified per Article 94(2)(a) of the Constitution.

In view of that the court further held that the Electoral Commission (EC) also violated Article 94(2)(a) of the Constitution when it permitted Mr Quayson to contest the election.

“Upon the true and proper interpretation of Article 94(2)(a) the decision of second defendant [Electoral Commission] to permit the first defendant [James Gyakye Quayson] to contest the parliamentary election of Assin North when the first defendant had not shown evidence of the cancellation of his citizenship of Canada is an act which is inconsistent with and violates Article 94(2)(a) of the 1992 Constitution,” the court held.

The highly anticipated by-election was however necessitated after Parliament wrote to the Electoral Commission declaring the seat vacant.

The NPP candidate, Charles Opoku, was number one on the ballot paper, the LPG candidate, Bernice Enyonam Sefenu, occupied the second position on the ballot while the NDC candidate, James Gyakye Quayson, on number three.

Prior to the election, all the big names of the parties involved tripped to Assin to support and campaign for their candidates respectively.

Although few confusions were recorded during the election, the entire election was successful.

Final Results 99/99 Polling Stations:
NPP – 11,389 (42%)
LPG – 85 (0.28%)
NDC – 17,205 (57.4%)