9 Aspirants re-submit forms - EC to decide their fate today
The Electoral Commission (EC) will, today, determine the fate of nine presidential aspirants who re-submitted their nomination forms to the commission yesterday, as ordered by the Supreme Court.
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Out of the nine, eight are the flag bearers of political parties, while the ninth is an independent presidential aspirant.
The parties are the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), the National Democratic Party (NDP), the All People’s Congress (APC), the People’s National Convention (PNC), the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), the United Front Party (UFP) and the Independent People’s Party (IPP).
The Independent presidential aspirant is Kwame Asiedu Walker.
Unsuccessful aspirants
The presidential aspirant of Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD) withdrew, that of the United Development Systems Party (UDSP) did not show up, while that of the Democratic People's Party (DPP) could not re-submit his nomination forms because of some challenges with them.
The errors on the PPP aspirant’s forms are said to have shot up from the original one to 86; the NDP’s from two to 33; Mr Walker’s from six to 40; the APC’s from two to 95; the IPP’s from three to 12 and the PNC’s from four to 300.
The Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Charlotte Osei, and other commissioners were on hand to receive the corrected forms.
As and when she and the commissioners felt that there were still some anomalies with the forms, they directed the representatives of the parties to go and effect the corrections for re-submission.
For instance, representatives of the PPP had earlier submitted their forms and were seen back at the EC to effect further corrections.
The NDP representative, who had returned to the EC after submitting its flag bearer’s nomination forms, was seen back at the commission, but he declined to indicate whether or not the party had effected further corrections.
After accepting the forms, Mrs Osei and the commissioners told the party representatives that they would hear from the EC.
Review forms
The Deputy Head of Communications at the EC, Mr Alhassan Yusif Ayuba, told the Daily Graphic that Mrs Osei, who is the Returning Officer for the presidential election, would review the nomination forms and make recommendations to the EC for a decision to be taken.
Per his explanation, the flag bearers would know their fate by the close of work today, as the EC wanted to clear that hurdle before the scheduled balloting for places on the presidential ballot paper tomorrow.
Mr Ayuba explained that the amendment by the parties did not mean automatic placement of the aspirants on the ballot paper.
In addition, he said, per the ruling of the Supreme Court, candidates who could not present their forms stood automatically disqualified.
That, he said, excluded individuals who were on the premises of the EC before close of work yesterday.
Representatives of the parties told journalists that they complied with all that the EC had asked them to correct and that they were hopeful of getting their flag bearers cleared to contest the 2016 presidential election.
Background
The EC disqualified 13 of the 17 presidential aspirants who had filed their nominations to contest the December 7 presidential election for various errors on their nomination forms.
Some of the disqualified aspirants took legal action against the EC, seeking to be reinstated.
Subsequently, the PPP and the APC won their cases at the High Court, a development that required the EC to reinstate them.
The EC, however, went to the Supreme Court to seek a reversal of the High Court ruling, but the apex court affirmed the earlier ruling by