Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante
The Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has expressed dismay at the alleged discovery of new errors on the nomination forms of the disqualified presidential aspirants after the Supreme Court had ordered the commission to cause the correction of the known errors and admit them into the presidential election contest.
Equally, the Peace Council is also urging the commission, chaired by Charlotte Osei, to desist from taking action that would be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to take some persons off the presidential ballot paper.
A statement released in Accra yesterday by CDD-Ghana described the Supreme Court’s order to allow all disqualified presidential aspirants to correct the errors on their forms and re-submit them as ‘forward-looking and unprecedented,’ adding, “In our view, the claim of new errors after the Supreme Court ruling is manifestly unfair and a breach of administrative justice.”
CDD-Ghana says it finds the new twist in which the EC asked the aspirants to correct the new errors, in addition to the earlier ones, within the stipulated time frame “deeply troubling” because “it was the EC that took the matter to the Supreme Court, ostensibly to bring finality to the many suits at the courts challenging its decision to disqualify a number of presidential aspirants.”
According to the centre, it was the EC that “implored the Supreme Court to invoke its supervisory jurisdiction in order to avert a constitutional crisis, taking into account the time-sensitive nature of the 2016 electoral timetable.” It is difficult to comprehend the EC’s decision to introduce new issues that have the potential to instigate new legal suits, which the Supreme Court in its lucid ruling and extraordinary consequential orders, had sought to abate – after the Court has heeded to the EC’s pleadings and issued pragmatic orders for management of the process.”
The CDD underscored, “The EC detailed reasons for disqualifying the thirteen presidential aspirants on 10th October, 2016.It was for these reasons that the aspirants went to court and obtained a favourable outcome. Therefore, all presidential aspirants should have a legitimate expectation that they will be asked to correct the mistakes that were publicly identified by the EC as reasons for their disqualification, anything more than that is an improper use of discretionary power.”
It called on the EC “to pull back from the brink of electoral and potential constitutional chaos, as well as collapse of our nascent democratic experiment, and to allow the disqualified aspirants to correct the errors that formed the basis of their earlier disqualification, as ordered by the Supreme Court.”
In the case of the Peace Council, its chairman, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante said, “I believe that the ruling of the Supreme Court should bring finality, especially in respect of the presidential candidates who were disqualified because they have been given the opportunity to resubmit.”
He said on Joy FM that it was important for the EC to desist from putting any more impediments in the way of the candidates and pleaded with the commission to strive to ensure that the spirit of the ruling was carried out without fear or favour.
“My advice first of all to the Electoral Commission (EC) is very simple. They have the responsibility to ensure that the ground is leveled,” he said.
By William Yaw Owusu