• Akufo-Addo’s nominee for the Cape Coast Municipality has been confirmed
• Confusion rocks confirmation, 77 votes counted after 63 assembly members cast votes
• MCE promises not to witch hurt members who voted against him
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s nominee for the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly, Ernest Arthur, has finally been confirmed as the Municipal Chief Executive.
He got the confirmation at the third and final round of voting on Sunday, October 17 after he polled 45 ‘Yes’ votes against 18 ‘No’ votes.
Before his confirmation, there was confusion at the Assembly hall of the Cape Coast Municipal Assembly due to an alleged overvoting in favour of the nominee.
Some assembly members rejected the results that seeks to confirm the nominee as MCE following the counting of 77 ballots instead of 63 representing the number of Assembly members who participated in the event.
Confusion broke out after some assembly members snatched some of the ballot papers.
Spokesperson for the group, who call themselves the Concerned Assembly members, speaking to GhanaWeb on phone, said the EC managed to count 63 papers after the snatching.
“…so the EC and Presiding Officer brought different ballot papers to the venue, and we tried protesting by snatching some of the ballot papers which counts to 14. We have the 14 papers but the EC managed to announce that 63 members took part in the voting. We took 14, 18 voted no and 45 voted yes, isn’t that 77? So where did they get the 63 from. We won’t allow this to happen. We have gathered evidence and we will hold a press conference tomorrow,” Usman Abbam Egyim told GhanaWeb.
Mr Egyim who is the Assemblymember for Kakumdo electoral area accused the EC of rigging the elections.
“…the EC rigged the election. They failed to allow our agent’s presence during voting. They also brought police officers to intimidate us. The EC chair must call Mr Asenso to order. He stole right in front of us and we did nothing because of security presence. If not the fact that we are calm things would have turned out very bad.”
Meanwhile, Ernest Arthur, after his confirmation, vowed not to witch hunt members who voted against him.
“I want to assure the assembly that I am not going to witch-hunt anybody because the exercise was not smooth, I will work with everybody,” 3news has reported.