The NPP General Secretary, Justin Frimpong Kodua, has accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of defying a court order and acting in contempt over its decision to conduct a rerun of the Ablekuma North parliamentary election.

According to him, the EC was clearly instructed by the court to collate outstanding polling station results and declare a winner—not to hold a fresh election.

Speaking on PM Express on JoyNews on Tuesday, July 8, Kodua insisted that the party had taken the matter to court and formally cited the EC for contempt.

“That is why we are in court. Do you know the details of our writ?” he asked. “The EC has been cited for contempt of court because the directive from the court is explicit. Go collate and declare. You cannot vary the order of the court.”

Kodua said the Electoral Commission does not have the legal authority to unilaterally decide to organize a rerun, especially when a court order has directed otherwise.

“It does not lie on the EC to conduct elections, and after elections, sit in the office and say that for convenience's sake, based on their own extensive investigation or knowledge, we are going to do a rerun. That will be a bad precedent for this country,” he warned.

He emphasised that the only lawful recourse available to the EC if it had concerns about the court directive was to return to court for a new order, not to act on its own accord.

“If, in any case, you had legitimate concerns that the directive that the court has given is unenforceable, the only remedy is to go back to the court to get a further directive or a varied directive,” he argued.

The NPP General Secretary also raised concerns about the breakdown of law and order during the initial coalition process, suggesting political interference and failure of state institutions.

“Our institutions are supposed to be impartial. That’s why it’s important they remain professional,” he said. “So are you trying to tell me that the reason why the police failed to provide security for us to complete the collation of the three outstanding polling stations was because they were working at the behest of this government?”

He further questioned the integrity of the Electoral Commission’s process, saying the EC had relied on the NPP’s own scanned pink sheets to complete parts of the earlier collation, as some original documents were destroyed during chaos at the coalition centre.

“The NPP scanned all our 281 pink sheets and collated our results. Before we went to the Electoral Commission, we knew our candidate had obtained 34,613 as against the NDC candidate’s 34,199—a difference of 414 votes. So we were very sure,” Kodua said.

He expressed dismay that after relying on the party’s documents, the EC had now “turned around and made a certain U-turn to run polls again in 19 polling stations.”

As tensions rise ahead of the July 11 rerun, the NPP maintains its position: it will not participate and insists the EC must obey the court order.