The private legal practitioner who championed the declaration of non-bailable offences as non-constitutional has advised the Electoral Commissioner to allow disqualified presidential aspirants the chance to correct mistakes on their nomination forms in order to contest the December polls.
Martin Kpebu wants the EC to soften its stance against the 12 disqualified presidential hopefuls since further delay to bring closure to the matter could throw the election timetable into jeopardy.
“The EC has to afford all the party the opportunity to correct their errors. I have made people made comments such as the [errors] that border on criminality should not be allowed, that those ones the parties should not be allowed to remedy those errors. That is wrong,” said Mr Kpebu.
He made these submissions on PM Express Monday on the Joy News channel on Multi TV, during a discussion of a Supreme Court order to the Commission to extend the date for the submission of forms to Tuesday.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday asked the Commission to extend its nomination period by a day to allow all the 12 aspirants who have been disqualified on the basis of errors on their nominations to correct all those anomalies.
The apex court gave the order following a suit filed by the Commission to set aside a High Court ruling that said the Commission erred when it disqualified the presidential candidate of the Progressive People’s Party’s (PPP) presidential candidate over errors on his nominations forms.
According to the EC, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, just like the 11 other candidates who were disqualified from the December polls had infractions on their forms. The infractions, according to the EC, ranged from acts of fraud, registration irregularities and recklessness on the part of the aspirants and their endorsers.
For the PPP flagbearer he was disqualified because one of his endorsers, Richard Aseda was deemed to have endorsed the candidate in the Central Region, as well as in the Volta Region, contrary to the election regulation which allowed the endorser the right to endorse in only one district.
However, speaking on PM Express, he said the PPP presidential candidate and the other candidates are being punished unjustifiably.
“Let’s not make a mistake; the candidates did not make those errors themselves.
I would admit that those subscribers were subscribing for the candidates, but if mistakes have come, why should you punish the candidates for that?” he quizzed.
He said especially that the so-called criminal infractions would have to be determined by a court of competent jurisdiction the EC was wrong to have decided to disqualify them even before such a determination was made.
“The fact that the Attorney General and Police cannot go to court today and tomorrow and have those cases determined and get those people convicted, it stands to reason that all those errors should be remedied. They [EC] should allow the candidates to substitute. In any case, how would a candidate know one subscriber has already subscribed for another person,” he said.
“Considering that we don’t have enough time, the EC should eat humble pie and allow everybody to correct their mistakes. It is better for our body politic,” he adds.
Watch the full programme that also hosted legal practitioner, Edudzi Tamekloe, in the video link below:
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