Advertisement

2020 Elections: Aspirants start filing today

2020 Elections: Aspirants start filing today

The Electoral Commission (EC) will, from today, begin receiving the nomination forms of presidential and parliamentary aspirants for the December 7, 2020 elections.

Aspirants have up to Friday to file their nominations with the EC.

The EC will receive the forms at its offices between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the commission has limited the number of people to submit the forms at the head office and the district offices to five.

As of last Friday, 14 political parties and three individuals had downloaded the nomination forms to file for and contest the presidential elections.

The political parties are the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the Convention People’s Party (CPP), the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), the National Democratic Party (NDP), the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), the All People’s Congress (APC) and the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP).

The rest are the Power Unity Party (PUP), the People’s National Convention (PNC), the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), the People’s Action Party (PAP), the Yes People’s Party, the United Progressive Party (UPP) and the United Front Party (UFP).

The independent presidential aspirants are Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah, who contested both the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections as an independent candidate, and first timers, Mr Kofi Gane and Dr Tom Asiseh.

Context

In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, the EC disqualified a number of presidential aspirants, including the flag bearers of the PPP, the NDP and the APC, for anomalies on their nomination forms.

The disqualification generated a lot of brouhaha, with the matter ending up at the Supreme Court, which ordered the EC to give all the disqualified aspirants the opportunity to correct the anomalies on their forms and re-submit them.

Background

The EC, on September 14, this year, opened nominations for this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections to be held on December 7.

It also fixed the filing fee for presidential aspirants at GH¢100,000 and that for parliamentary aspirants at GH¢10,000.

The figure for the presidential aspirants is a 100 per cent increase over the 2016 filing fee, while that for parliamentary aspirants did not see any change.

Submission of forms

Whereas the nomination forms for presidential aspirants shall be submitted to the Chairperson of the EC, who is the Returning Officer for the presidential election, at the Head Office of the EC by the candidates or any of their supporters, parliamentary aspirants are to submit their forms to the returning officer of the district office of the commission in the constituency in which the candidate seeks election.

The forms shall be submitted by the aspirant or his or her proposer/seconder, the EC explained.

Operations

In an interview, the Deputy Commissioner of the EC in charge of Operations, Mr Samuel Tettey, said the doors of the EC were open to any political party or individual who could download, fill and submit the forms before the deadline.

He said after the deadline, the forms would be vetted and approved by the returning officers, and in the case of the presidential election, it would be done by the Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa.

Mr Tettey said the outcome, and hence the fate of the aspirants, would be announced after the vetting exercise.

Qualifications

To qualify to contest for the presidency, a person must be a citizen of Ghana by birth, a registered voter, be at least 40 years and qualified to contest election to Parliament.

The aspirant must have paid all relevant taxes or made satisfactory arrangements with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to pay such taxes.

However, in spite of meeting such criteria, a person cannot be a presidential candidate if he/she, among other things, owes allegiance to a country other than Ghana or has been adjudged or otherwise declared bankrupt under any law in force in Ghana and has not been discharged, or was of unsound mind, or had been detained as a criminal lunatic under any law in force in Ghana, or has been convicted for treason or for an offence involving the security of the state, fraud, dishonesty or moral turpitude.

#GhanaVotes2020

Connect With Us : 0242202447 | 0551484843 | 0266361755 | 059 199 7513 |