Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has noted that parliamentary candidates whose election results have been annulled by the Supreme Court cannot be sworn in as Members of Parliament on January 6.The Supreme Court invalidated the re-collated results for the Okaikwei Central, Ablekuma North, Tema Central, and Techiman South constituencies, citing critical irregularities and procedural errors in the electoral process.

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This ruling stemmed from a legal challenge filed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) against a High Court verdict issued on December 20, which mandated the Electoral Commission (EC) to re-collate the parliamentary election results in nine contested constituencies.The NDC fiercely contested the High Court's directive, arguing that the re-collation process was unlawful and devoid of legal merit.

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The party asserted that the court had overstepped its boundaries, thereby jeopardizing the credibility and fairness of the electoral process.“The decision of the Supreme Court just followed the position I took before they even delivered their decision. To become a member of parliament, you have to be elected by the voter, and you have to be declared by the electoral commission.“But you have to be sworn in by the speaker.

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Until you are sworn in by the speaker, you remain MP-elect. So I was very clear in my mind that some of those re-collation and re-declarations were completely null and void.“They were unknown to the law and so they were not properly so-called MPs-elect and not qualified to be sworn in by me. My clerk is here. We had those discussions when I told them. They were all surprised. I said, yes. I’m the gatekeeper.

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The right thing must be done for us to be able to reset Ghana.”

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