The Electoral Commission has said it cannot take responsibility for the disqualification of presidential aspirant for the National Democratic Party (NDP), Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.
An 11-page response to lawyers of the NDP, signed by one of the lawyers of the EC, Thaddeus Sory , in response to a letter by Konadu’s lawyers demanding Nana Konadu’s reinstatement, indicated that the EC cannot be faulted for her disqualification since she presented her nomination forms a day to the expiry of the nomination period.
“With regard to the non-complaint errors in respect of which our client expressed its inability to accept your client’s nomination papers however, we have been instructed by our client that it was impossible to comply with strict time period specified by rules within which your clients are by law permitted to amend or alter their nomination papers to comply with the requirements of the law regulating same, especially that your clients presented their nomination papers a day to the expiry of the nomination period, although your clients and all candidates were urged to submit their nomination papers as early as possible.
“In their regard, we must point out that our client does not take over responsibility for correctly filling out nomination papers of candidates only because the law requires the returning officers to draw their attention to statutorily non complaint errors.”
Why Nana Konadu was disqualified
On Monday, the Electoral Commission disqualified Nana Konadu and 12 other presidential aspirants from contesting the 2016 elections for failing to meet the necessary requirements.
In explaining the NDP Flagbearer’s disqualification, the EC said it was unable to accept Nana Konadu’s 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 was not a validly registered voter, and illegally registered twice hence was on the Exclusion list of multiple voters.
Nana Konadu and her running mate, Kojo Mensah Sosuh, subsequently petitioned the Commission through their lawyers to reinstate them, after the disqualification.
They threatened to sue the Commission if it failed to do so.
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