The Electoral Commission (EC) yesterday balloted for positions on how parliamentary candidates of the various political parties would appear on the ballot paper on December 7 when the country goes to the polls.
In all, seven out of the 15 political parties that have fielded parliamentary candidates were present.
The established convention has been for balloting to be conducted on how presidential candidates of the various political parties appear on the ballot paper, and same positions given to their parliamentary candidates wherever they may contest the seats.
Issues
But due to the case filed by some political parties against the EC’s disqualification of their presidential candidates from contesting in the December election for supposedly failing to meet certain criteria, the commission had to make room for parties to ballot for the positions on the ballot paper. That, the commission said, was because “time is running out.”
Some of the parties raised concerns about the possible confusion it could create, pending the final determination of the case in court.
The EC would therefore, have to organize another session for the presidential candidates to ballot for positions, which are likely to be at variance with those of their parliamentary candidates, thereby creating room for some level of confusion.
Positions
At the end of the day, the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) picked the number one slot on the ballot paper. In effect, its parliamentary candidates are expected to be first on the ballot paper; followed by those of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) and then candidates of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). Those of the United Progressive Party (UPP) are to occupy the fourth position.
The rest include those of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who would occupy the fifth position on the ballot paper on Election Day; followed in the sixth position by candidates of the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Independent People’s Party (IPP) candidates taking the seventh slot.
Even though representatives of the remaining eight political parties were not available for balloting, the EC resolved to place them on the ballot paper in the order in which they filed their nominations, with parliamentary candidates of the United Front Party (UFP) set to occupy the eighth position while candidates of the All People’s Party (APC), Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD), Unity Systems Development Party (USDP), Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), Convention People’s Party (CPP), People’s National Convention (PNC) and Democratic People’s Party (DPP) appear in that order.
Worry
General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia had no issues with the decision, but his colleague acting General Secretary of the NPP, John Boadu said, “This is unconventional; this is something that they are doing out of the constraints they are having.”
“Even with this ballot that we’ve done, you’ll realize that there are some constituencies that may not feature some parliamentary candidates, so we picked number five but you may well see that in some constituencies you are on number four on the ballot paper, in other constituencies you are number three on the ballot and all that…so clearly we are almost in a mess.”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu