An Accra High Court will today Monday, October 31, decide on a case brought before it by the All People’s Congress (APC) against the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana over the disqualification of party flag bearer Hassan Ayariga from contesting in the December 7 polls.
The court is set to decide if Mr Ayariga’s disqualification was in accordance with the country’s electoral laws.
Dr Ayariga was one of 12 other presidential candidates disqualified from contesting in the elections over alleged illegalities on their nomination forms.
The court overturned the EC’s decision to disqualify Progressive People’s Party (PPP) flag bearer Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom on Friday, instructing the commission to give him an opportunity to correct anomalies on his nomination form.
It remains to be seen whether the APC could also secure a judgment in their favour. Shortly after the verdict on Dr Nduom’s case, Dr Ayariga indicated that he was glad that “our laws are working”.
“ … We congratulate the lawyers of the PPP and the court for doing the right thing. We want to promote multiparty democracy and not to destroy it. The EC must act properly because their credibility is in question now,” Mr Ayariga told Naa Dedei Tettey on 12Live minutes after the court quashed the EC’s disqualification of Dr Nduom from the 2016 presidential race.
“Clearly, this is all that we have all been asking for. There’s a period of opening of nominations and it has to be gazetted. ... The EC didn’t do that…and in the CI 94, there are clauses that state that you must give the candidates the opportunity to make corrections…”
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