Akua Donkor and Roman Fada
The Electoral Commission (EC) has disqualified Philip Appiah Kubi, popularly known as Roman Fada, as the presidential candidate of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP) following the death of Akua Donkor.
The Chair of the EC, Jean Mensa, who announced this at an emergency meeting with representatives of the political parties yesterday in Accra, said the GFP’s presidential candidate was disqualified following alleged irregularities and ‘illegitimate’ information detected on the nomination forms he submitted to the Commission.
According to the EC chair, the Commission detected that the nomination forms contained multiple signatories for a district instead of one signatory per district, as stated in the electoral laws.
She said though the party rectified some of the errors, others detected could not be glossed over under the electoral laws of the country, hence, the need for the Commission to disqualify Philip Appiah Kubi from contesting the December 7 election.
Philip Appiah Kubi, then running mate of GFP, was presented by the party to the EC to replace founder and leader of the party, Madam Akua Donkor, who died on Monday, October 28, 2024 at the Ridge Hospital in Accra.
Madam Mensa, however, indicated that the number 3 and image of the late Madam Akua Donkor remains unchanged on the ballot paper.
She said the EC will notify the printing houses to continue with the printing of the presidential ballots which was halted few weeks ago following the death of Madam Akua Donkor.
She said reballoting will cost the country millions of cedis given that over 90 percent of ballots has already been printed.
“The printing will proceed on the current ballot as it is in the interest of time and to save this country millions of cedis. We are not here to change positions, we are not here to reballot but we are here to notify you that the Commission intends to notify the printing houses to proceed with the presidential ballot papers,” she said.
“As it is, they should proceed with the ballot that bears the name and image of Madam Akua Donkor of the Ghana Freedom Party, and we believe that a lot of education and sensitisation will go on to prevent citizens from voting for her,” she added.
She said the EC will embark on various forms of advertisement to educate the public to focus on the political parties and candidates they want to vote for, and ignore the image and number of the GFP on the ballot paper on December 7.
Meanwhile, Richard Botwe, the National Organiser of the GFP, in an interview with journalists, described the party’s nominee, Philip Appiah Kubi’s disqualification as a favourable phenomenon that will help the party to commiserate with the bereaved family.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah