The Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has described the Electoral Commission’s (EC) detection of new errors on the nomination forms of the previously disqualified presidential aspirants for the December polls unfair and a breach of administrative justice.
CDD expressed fears that the new twist to the issue of EC finding new errors in the nomination forms of presidential aspirants has the potential to create political chaos.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Center said failure to manage the situation where the EC and the 12 disqualified presidential aspirants are in a standoff over correcting errors on their nomination forms won't augur well for Ghana's democracy.
Consequently, CDD called on the EC to pull back from the brink of electoral and potential constitutional chaos, as well as the collapse of our nascent democratic experiment, and to allow the disqualified aspirants to correct the errors that formed the basis of their earlier disqualification, as ordered by the Supreme Court.
“Quick compliance with the orders will also afford the EC a little more time to carry out critical tasks ahead of this election including, educating voters about the voting procedure as well as some of the new innovations it has introduced to deal with rejected ballots and the transmission of results,” it said.
The Think Tank called on all civil society organisations, professional bodies, faith-based groups, youth groups, the union movement, academia, and indeed on all citizens of Ghana to support their call to the EC to avoid a potential constitutional crisis.
The Center said it is, "dismayed by the news that the EC at this late stage in the electoral process claims it has discovered new errors on the nomination forms of the disqualified presidential aspirants," adding that "failure to manage the electoral process wisely puts our democracy at risk."
"The Center respectively calls on the EC to pull back from the brink of electoral and potential constitutional chaos, as well as the collapse of our nascent democratic experiment, and to allow the disqualified aspirants to correct the errors that formed the basis of their earlier disqualification," the statement said.
CDD said it finds this new twist to the processing of nomination forms of presidential aspirants deeply troubling, especially because it was the EC that took the matter to the Supreme Court, ostensibly to bring finality to the many suits at the courts challenging its decision to disqualify a number of presidential aspirants.
It explained that the EC implored the Supreme Court to invoke its supervisory jurisdiction in order to avert a constitutional crisis, taking into account the sensitive nature of the 2016 electoral timetable.
Therefore, it is difficult to comprehend the EC’s decision to introduce new issues that have the potential to instigate new legal suits, which the Supreme Court in its lucid ruling and extraordinary consequential orders, had sought to abate - after the Court has heeded to the EC’s pleadings and issued pragmatic orders for management of the process.
The EC detailed reasons for disqualifying the 13 presidential aspirants on 10th October 2016.
It was for these reasons that the aspirants went to court and obtained a favourable outcome.
Therefore, all presidential aspirants should have a legitimate expectation that they will be asked to correct the mistakes that were publicly identified by the EC as reasons for their disqualification, anything more than that is an improper use of discretionary power.
CDD reminded the EC and all key election stakeholders that democratic governance and credible elections, in particular, are what is at stake for Ghanaians and for Ghana on December 7 saying “failure to manage the electoral process wisely puts our democracy at risk”.
“Per the electoral calendar, we have already missed the original date of the publication of the Notice of Poll, which will now be published, hopefully, on Thursday, 10th November 2016 in accordance with Supreme Court orders - that is if the parties do not return to court”.
CDD commended the Chief Justice and the Judiciary for the display of great proactively and acting with a sense of urgency and responsibility.
“Every effort must, therefore, be made to support their initiative. However, the EC, presidential aspirants, and all stakeholders in Ghana’s democratic governance must understand that it is not healthy or safe for the Supreme Court of the land to be the only institution for preventing a descent into political chaos.
The EC in last October disqualified some presidential candidates for various errors on their nominations forms but an Accra High Court ruling a case brought before it by the Progressive People's Party (PPP) aspirants ordered the Commission to allow him to make the necessary corrections.
This, the Commission contested at the Supreme Court to bring finality to the issue as some other aspirants had sued the EC contesting their disqualification.
Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favour of the aspirants ordering the EC to give them an opportunity to correct their errors.
However, the EC came out to point that the said errors for the various parties have increased from what the aspirants were told in the first instance.
Whereas the PPP though they had only one error to correct, they were told they have 104 others to correct and the People's National Convention (PNC's) errors jumped from four to 303.
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