Jean Mensa
The Electoral Commission (EC) has announced October 5 to October 9 as the date for the filing of nomination forms by presidential and parliamentary candidates in the upcoming 2020 general election in December.
It comes with filing fees of GH¢100,000 and GH¢10,000 in bankers draft for presidential and parliamentary candidates respectively.
This means that the filing fee for presidential candidates has been doubled as against the fee for the 2016 general election, while the filing fee for the parliamentary candidates remains the same.
The Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa, who made the announcement yesterday, said the forms would be forwarded to the general secretaries of registered political parties via online for candidates to have access to them.
She said presidential candidates would have to file their nominations at the national headquarters of the EC with only five supporters each because of Covid-19 while the parliamentary candidate would have to file at the district offices of EC where their constituencies are located.
According to the EC chairperson, in the case of the parliamentary candidates, they would need to contact the Director of the Electoral Services of the EC to arrange for convenient dates to submit their forms at the district offices and the manner the forms would be submitted.
She explained that parliamentary candidates would have to submit their forms together with tax clearance certificates.
Mrs. Mensa said each registered party would be given special password to be able to access the nomination form on the EC’s website – ‘ec.gov.gh.com/parties’ – adding that independent candidates would also be given special password to able to access the forms.
She said filing date had been increased from two days to five days to give candidates more time to fill and correct mistakes and also help reduce pressure at the offices of the EC.
She advised all the candidates to contact the EC to know the right qualifications and all the requirements to meet before filing for their nominations.
She said candidates must take critical note that if one holds dual citizenship, he or she cannot file and contest the 2020 general elections, stressing that candidates must not have any baggage regarding fraud, murder, criminal prosecution and bad records relating to the security of the state.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr