A legal luminary and Chairperson of the New
Patriotic Party(NPP) Legal and Constitutional Committee, Prof. Mike Oquaye has
said the Electoral Commission’s disqualification of some Presidential hopefuls
is contestable citing some flaws in the underpinning issues backing the EMB’s
claims.He wondered why the EC will go ahead and disqualify a candidate
based on a subscriber’s inclusion in an exclusion list, which he argues is
within the peculiar knowledge of the commission till date.
Commenting on
the fall out of the disqualification saga in an interview on Kasapa FM,
Prof. Ocquaye said “the exclusion list should be made public otherwise everybody
would treat them as genuine so long as they hold and produce a card from the EC.
”
He queried”how do you become double sure? even the persons on the
exclusion list might not know they are on it.” Several Presidential candidates
have had their nominations nullified following what the EC has cited as
anomalies in relation to their nominations.
Former first lady, Nana
Konadu Agyeman Rawlings is one of the victims who missed out on running for the
presidency because one of her guarantors is on the exclusion list of multiple
voters.
Briefing the media on Monday, Chairperson of the EC explained
that “the Commission is unable to accept Mrs. Rawlings’ nomination because the
number of subscribers to her forms did not meet the requirements of Regulation 7
(2) (b) of CI 94.”
“One subscriber on page 89 of her nomination forms is
not a validly registered voter and illegally registered twice and so is on the
Exclusion list of multiple voters.”
But Prof. Ocquaye said the EC is to
blame for all such lapses since it did not do due diligence by going ahead to
either publish such exclusion list and to a large extent possibly effect
criminal prosecution against such persons.
He added: “a person who is
purported to register twice must be prosecuted. Why has the EC not gone by the
law?
According to him, these are highly contestable there are contestable
issues insisting that it’s only in the discretion of the court to determine the
way forward as to whether such decisions could be upheld as disqualification by
operation of the law. |
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