The National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary candidate for the Assin North by-election, James Gyakye Quayson, was successful in Tuesday’s vote.
Mr Quayson won the by-election on June 27, 2023, with 17,245 votes, or 57.56 per cent of the total votes cast, defeating Charles Opoku of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Bernice Enyonam Sefenu of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG).
Charles Opoku received 12,630 votes, accounting for 42.15 per cent of the votes cast in the highly contested by-election, while the LPG’s Bernice Enyonam Sefenu received only 87 votes (0.29%).
Gyakye Quayson, who received 17,498 votes in the 2020 election, was booted out of Parliament for possessing dual citizenship prior to completing his nomination documents.
The Assin North seat fell empty after the Supreme Court decided on May 17 that Gyakye Quayson’s name be removed from Parliament’s records.
Mr Quayson was not qualified to run in the 2020 parliamentary election in the Assin North Constituency when he filed his candidature documents on October 9, 2020, according to the Supreme Court.
It determined that Mr Quayson had not provided evidence of abandoning his Canadian citizenship and that the Electoral Commission had granted him permission to run in the election in the absence of this proof.
The Court also held that Mr. Quayson’s election to the Assin North Constituency as a Member of Parliament was unlawful.
In a unanimous verdict, the 7-member judge panel declared that “the qualification of holding only Ghanaian citizenship must be present at the time of nomination, and not any date thereafter.”
Following his expulsion from Parliament, a criminal investigation was launched against him, and he is now facing allegations of perjury and forgery.
The NDC ran Gyakye Quayson in the by-election to redress an injustice, according to the party.
Mr. Quayson stated a day before the election that he is certain of winning, emphasising that his good efforts for the people of Assin North would catapult him ahead of his adversaries.
