Charlotte Osei, EC Chair
The fate of the 13 disqualified presidential aspirants still remains in the balance as the Electoral Commission (EC) failed to reach a decision about their nominations yesterday.
The EC is expected to take a decision before the accepted presidential aspirants ballot for positions on the ballot paper tomorrow.
The EC is said to have delayed the decision following reports that it had discovered fresh errors on the forms of the disqualified aspirants who include Hassan Ayariga of the All People ‘s Congress (APC); Dr Edward Nasigiri Mahama of the People’s National Congress (PNC); Nana Agyenim Boateng popularly known as Gyataba, United Front Party (UFP); Kofi Akpaloo, Independent People’s Party (IPP); Kwabena Adjei, Reformed Democratic Party (RDP) and Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, Progressive People’s Party (PPP).
The rest are Henry Lartey, Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP); Richard Nixon Tetteh, Unity Development System Party (UDSP); former first lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, National Democratic Party (NDP); Thomas Nuako Ward-Brew, Democratic People’s Party (DPP) and Independent presidential aspirant, Alfred Kwame Asiedu Walker, while the fate of Akwasi Addai Odike of the United Progressive Party (UPP) still remains unknown with a high court hearing of a suit brought against his candidature. Ruling has been scheduled for December 5 – two days to the general election on December 7.
According to the PNC for instance, the four errors as previously stated by it (EC), are now 303 and the APC’s mistakes have jumped from two to 95 while Nduom’s PPP errors are over 100 – from one.
Bad Faith
But the action of the EC has been described as bad faith, raising concerns about the commission’s commitment to the democratic process.
According to political think-tank, Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), the EC posturing is very troubling.
“The Center wishes to remind the EC and all key election stakeholders that democratic governance and credible elections in particular are what is at stake for Ghanaians and for Ghana on December 7. Failure to manage the electoral process wisely puts our democracy at risk. Per the electoral calendar, we have already missed the original date for the publication of the Notice of Poll, which will now be published, hopefully, on Thursday, 10th November, 2016 in accordance with Supreme Court orders – that is if the parties do not return to court” – the CDD lamented.
The aspirants had made various mistakes in their nomination forms for which the EC decided to disqualify them from contesting in the upcoming presidential election; with only the New Patriotic Party (NPP) led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; incumbent President John Dramani Mahama, candidate for the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC); Ivor Kobina Greenstreet of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and independent presidential candidate, Jacob Osei Yeboah, cleared to contest.
But after weeks of back and forth legal gymnastics, the Supreme Court on Monday finally ordered the commission to give the aspirants another opportunity to correct the errors on their nomination forms.
The court gave them up to the close of work yesterday to complete those forms and submit them to the EC for consideration.
Drama
With just a day’s grace period to make amends, the premises of the commission became the hottest political bed yesterday with the affected aspirants racing to its (ECs) headquarters located at Ridge in Accra in a bid to get their names on the ballot paper.
Some had to shuttle between the EC headquarters and their offices a couple of times before they could submit the corrected forms, with others having to bus those scheduled to endorse their forms from various parts of the country to the location in order to beat the deadline.
Interestingly, aspirants like Akua Donkor who had already given up any hope of a possible come-back and declared her support for President Mahama, showed up to re-file their nominations to the surprise of many onlookers who questioned her seriousness.
The PPP team was led by two of Dr Nduom’s sons and party Chairman, Nii Allotey Brew Hammond, and other national executives while Dr Edward Mahama led the PNC team together with party General Secretary, Atik Mohammed. The NDP was led by General Secretary, Mohammed Frimpong and the party’s parliamentary candidate for Agotime-Ziope, Dr David Sunu.
Independent presidential aspirant Kwame Asiedu Walker was also there to submit his forms just like the UFP’s Nana Agyenim-Boateng; the IPP’s Kofi Akpaloo and the DPP’s Thomas Nuako Ward-Brew, who raised concerns that the EC gave them only one instead of the three nomination forms to correct errors on; the Youth Organiser for Hassan Ayariga’s APC, Razak Kojo Poku and others, including John Ameka, running mate to GCPP’s Henry Lartey, were also at the EC office to submit their forms.
Closed Doors
Unlike in previous instances where the EC boss and her colleagues sat and received the nomination forms, this time round, the exercise was held behind closed doors on the blind side of prying journalists who were hungry for news.
By the close of day – with the exception of Kwabena Adjei popularly known as Bambata of the Reformed Democratic Party (RDP) who decided to withdraw his nomination, representatives and most of the aspirants had re-submitted their corrected nomination forms to the EC with the hope that they would be cleared to contest the general election.
However, at the end of the day, the EC did not announce a decision as to who managed to sail through and who did not.
Controversial Chairperson of the Commission, Charlotte Osei, was locked up in a meeting with her colleague Commissioners and other senior management staff obviously screening the re-submitted nominations forms.
Disappointment
After waiting for several hours with itchy ears, news-hungry journalists who had besieged the EC headquarters in-search of news since morning had no option but to return to their various media houses, almost crestfallen as the EC had not reached a decision.
With balloting of slots for the presidential election scheduled for tomorrow, it is believed that the EC would determine the fate of the 13 aspirants sometime today to enable the printing of ballot papers for the elections in the coming days.
It is however, not too clear who and who would make it to the final list to appear on the paper, even though Ben Ephson’s Daily Dispatch newspaper has predicted that only the four already certified candidates – the NPPs Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, incumbent President John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and independent candidate, Jacob Osei Yeboah, would be on the ballot paper.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu