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Kpandai seat controversy: Withdraw ‘premature’ notification to EC immediately – Minority demands
The Minority in Parliament has insisted that Parliament’s letter to the Electoral Commission (EC) declaring the Kpandai seat vacant must be immediately withdrawn.
At a press conference in Parliament on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, Deputy Minority Leader, Patricia Appiagyei said the notification to EC is “premature” as there are application for a stay of execution of the ruling by the High Court as well as an application for a Judicial review at the Supreme Court.
The Minority caucus noted that the current decision of Parliament to declare Kpandai seat vacant despite the ongoing stay of execution and judicial review applications is a departure from historical precedence.
“If we proceed, we do not wrong Kpandai today, we establish a toxic new rule for tomorrow that a parliamentary majority can weaponize a first instant court order to instantly unseat a political opponent rendering the Appellate Court’s and our own historical practice obsolete,” she stated.
The Minority is convinced that the House must acknowledge that a stayed and appealed judgement cannot be considered the final determination in the Kpandai case.
The Caucus has further demanded that Parliament;
- defer any action until the appellate process is conclusively complete, respecting the precedent set across decades.
- needs to recognize that this premature notification violates the separation of powers, disrespects the Judiciary and unjustly disenfranchises the people of Kpandai and betrays Parliament’s own tradition of constitutional culture.
- need to withdraw the notice to the Electoral Commission immediately.
They say their demand “is not a partisan call but a call for basic constitutional fidelity and historical consistency.”
The Deputy Minority leaded added that “the notification on Kpandai is historical aberration. It is a violation of the separation of powers, it is a usurpation of appellate jurisdiction, a disenfranchisement of Kpandai voters, a denial of Honourable of Matthew Nyindam’s right and a gross departure from our own certain practices.”
The Kpandai parliamentary seat has been declared vacant by the Speaker of Parliament, following a court ruling that the Kpandai parliamentary elections should be rerun.
A letter that the Clerk to Parliament wrote to the Electoral Commission said: “In exercise of the power conferred and the duty imposed on the Clerk to Parliament by Article 112(5), as amended, of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, as amended, I, EBENEZER AHIMAH DJIETROR, the Clerk to Parliament, DO HEREBY FORMALLY NOTIFY you of the occurrence of a vacancy in the membership of Parliament, occasioned by the Order of the High Court, Tamale, for a rerun of the Kpandai Parliamentary Elections, given on the 24th day of November, 2025.
“This notification is pursuant to the service of a court Order on the Clerk to Parliament as the 4th Respondent in the suit numbered: NR/TL/HC/E13/22/25. Accordingly, notice is hereby given.”
The Tamale High Court has ordered a rerun of the Kpandai parliamentary election within 30 days from Monday, November 24. The decision of the High Court judge, His Lordship Emmanuel Brew Plange, was due to irregularities in the voting and collation processes that undermined the credibility of the outcome.
The petition alleged irregularities in the voting and collation processes that undermined the credibility of the outcome.
The legal team of Matthew Nyindam, the MP who has been ordered not to hold himself as a lawmaker, has filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal as well as a judicial review of the High Court’s decision at the Supreme Court.
Source:Fiilafmonline/CitiNews
