Charlotte Osei, EC Chairperson
Disqualified All People’s Congress (APC) Presidential candidate Hassan Ayariga says the Electoral Commission chairperson Charlotte Osei has demonstrated that she cannot be trusted to manage the 2016 general elections.
According to him,the former Electoral Commissioner Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan conducted the affairs of the commission more credibily than his successor, Charlotte Osei.
“If I have to tell you the truth, I don’t trust the EC. She is not straight in doing their things” the 45-year old businessman said on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Wednesday.
Making his case for a reversal of his disqualification, Hassan Ayariga said the EC told the world a ‘big lie’ when she claimed he could not properly fill his presidential nomination forms.
Hassan Ayariga was the first of 12 presidential aspirants disqualified for their inability to meet a statutory requirement of getting 432 voters to endorse their nomination forms.
Charlotte Osei at the press conference to announce the staggering list of disqualified politicians explained that two voters had endorse Hassan Ayariga and another candidate. It means he fell short of the statutory requirement to amass 432 endorsers.
A tantrum-throwing Ayariga was incensed by the announcement and verbally abused the first female Electoral Commissioner.
It was an action he later apologised for. He explained on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, ‘the EC attacked my identity so I attacked her integrity’.
He explained he was in no position to verify if his endorsers had also endorsed other candidates.
“We don’t have database to know whether you have subscribed to someone or not” he said.
As far as he is concerned he submitted 432 voters and that should be enough statement of his commitment to meet the requirements spelt out in C.1 94.
If there are ‘mistakes’, made in ignorance, the EC should correct it. “it is simple this is not a matter that you have to drag” he dismissed.
He also pointed to the ‘mistakes’ that the EC also makes when an 18-year-old voter had a card that put his age at 140 years.
The election petition hearing which challenged the EC declaration of John Mahama as the winner of the 2012 presidential elections also exposed the commission as prone to error, he said.
He argued that the Supreme Court did not ban the EC from organising elections but instead it directed that the EC should take steps to improve the credibility of elections.
If the Supreme Court could overlook the errors of the EC, why should Charlotte Osei have the mettle to disqualify ‘a whole presidential candidate’ he argued.
“The EC thinks that she is hard but she is setting a bad precedent,undermines” he said.
He rejected criticisms that his laughable comments undermine the seriousness of his bid to be president.
According to him he did not open 10 regional offices, 143 constituency offices and procure 30 APC-branded pick-ups all in one year if he was not serious about being president.
“At 20, I made my first million; at 22, I built my first house; at 44, I formed my own political party. If Ghanaians think I’m not serious with all these, then by the time I get serious, I will buy the whole world” he said.
-Myjoyonline