Dr. Josiah Aryeh (left) addressing a press conference yesterday with Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings
The leadership of the National Democratic Party (NDP) wants the Electoral Commission (EC) to reconsider its decision to reject the nomination forms of its presidential candidate, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.
According to the party, it would not rule out dragging the EC to court if it failed to reconsider its decision of shutting the door on Nana Konadu.
The national youth organiser of the NDP, Dr David Sunu, said the party would not take the disqualification of their presidential candidate from contesting the December polls lightly, stressing they would fight for justice.
The chairman of the party, Dr Nii Armah Josiah-Aryeh, was also of the opinion that the new party was not treated fairly and that it would fight for justice, dropping the hint that it might go to court by next week.
The chairman of the party, Dr Nii Armah Josiah-Aryeh, was also of the opinion that the new party was not treated fairly and that it would fight for justice, dropping the hint that it might go to court by next week.
Contrary to the claims that the party could not marshal the needed signatories to endorse the nomination forms, Dr Josiah-Aryeh said, “The NDP will not be found wanting when it comes to voter registration all over the country as required by the Electoral Commission.”
That, according him, was because “we are a middle front line party comparable to any of the other political parties in Ghana today, and this should persuade the EC in the exercise of its discretionary power in regulating the conduct of filing flag bearer nominations with the EC”.
He was speaking at a press conference at the party’s Kokomlemle headquarters yesterday which was attended by Mrs. Rawlings.
The leadership of the NDP asked Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan and the EC to take a second look at its earlier decision.
He quoted portions of the EC’s own regulation to support his argument.
Article 7 (1) of the EC’s regulations regarding the submission of nomination forms states, “Whenever the nomination paper and the statutory declaration are delivered and the deposit is paid in accordance with these regulations, the candidate shall be considered to stand nominated unless proof is given to the satisfaction of the returning officer of the candidate’s death, withdrawal or disqualification.”
Article 7 (2) states, “The returning officer shall inform a candidate that his submission is invalid where (a) the particulars of the candidate or the person subscribing to the nomination paper are not as required by law (b) the nomination paper is not subscribed to as required by law and in that instance the returning officer shall allow an opportunity to make any amendment or alteration that the candidate considers necessary.”
Section 3 of the same document states inter alia, “Where the returning officer decides that a nomination paper is invalid after complying with sub-regulation (2) of this regulation, he shall endorse and sign on the nomination paper the facts and state the reasons for his decision and inform the Commission accordingly and the Commission shall refer the matter with its observations to the Attorney-General.”
He noted, “The situation, as it is now, is that none of these things have been done so it’s entirely up to you to judge whether or not the Electoral Commission has done the right thing.”
The NDP chairman noted that the use of the word “shall” made it mandatory for the EC to allow the NDP to file its nomination since it could not resort to the use of discretionary powers.
He said, “The EC rule clearly stated that those who submitted their forms after the 5pm deadline will be disqualified; the rule did not say that those who had errors in their forms will be disqualified”, insisting that the NDP submitted its form before the deadline.
For this reason, he noted that “if there are mistakes, then the NDP should be allowed in line or consonance with the Electoral Commission’s own regulation to correct them as have been the case or was the case with Dr Edward Mahama at the last general elections.
“Our case is that we duly submitted our nomination form on time yesterday…that is common ground; the Electoral Commission itself concedes that we submitted it on time but they say that there were questions with the paper.”
He added, “If there were questions with the nomination paper, then we felt squarely within Article 7 (b).”
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