The Progressive People’s Party is in a “waiting mood” hoping and praying the Electoral Commission will receive their revised nomination forms in the same spirit they were presented.
That is the cry of the party’s flagbearer Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom barely two hours after the party submitted their nomination form on the final day of second nomination period.
Speaking to Joy News Editor Dzifa Bampoh, the entrepreneur said nobody deserves to go through what he and his party went through and it does not bode well for the credibility of the EC.
Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom was disqualified on October 10,2016 for failing to complete his presidential nomination form according to law.
One of his subscribers, Richard Aseda was deemed to have endorsed the flagbearer, twice and in two separate districts when he was expected to have endorsed in just one district.
The PPP challenged the disqualification of its flagbearer citing portions of the CI 94, the election regulation document, which mandated the EC to allow the aspirants to correct all anomalies on their nomination, failing which the EC can then disqualify them.
The PPP insisted the EC did not give them any opportunity to rectify the anomaly on the form and so did not have the right to disqualify the flagbearer.
They went to the High Court , challenged the decision and got a favorable ruling in which the judge Justice Kyei Baffour ordered the EC to allow Dr Nduom to correct the anomaly found on his form.
The EC was unhappy with the ruling and also decided to proceed to the Supreme Court to quash the decision of the High Court but for the second time the court asked the EC to allow, this time, all the disqualified aspirants to correct the infractions on their forms.
The Apex Court also directed the EC to extend the nomination period by one more day to allow all the aspirants to correct the mistakes.
But the aspirants who went with the hope of correcting the errors that were brought to their attention by the EC had an unpleasant surprise when the EC introduced a mountain of other errors they had to correct.
The PPP errors had increased from 1 to 105, That of the PNC had increased from four to 308. Those of APC, NDP had all seen increases in the errors discovered.
That also posed a new hurdle with some of the aspirants threatening to go back to the Supreme Court if they were unable to complete filling the forms.
After close of nomination today, eight out of the 12 aspirants had corrected the errors and submitted same to the Commission.
Lawyer for the PPP Ayikoi Otoo told Joy News they had corrected only the one error that was brought to their attention and which went to the Supreme Court but cared little about the 104 others that were brought to their attention yesterday.
However further checks by Joy News Joseph Ackah Blay indicated that the party had brought a bus full of subscribers desperately waiting to be used as replacement for any of the subscribers that the EC had problems with.
The party’s flagbearer Dr Nduom later told Joy News they had to do everything possible to satisfy the EC but they are in a period of waiting, with an expectation that the EC will reciprocate the gesture they have shown.
“We have dealt with the main issue; everything we needed to do we have done. We called about 80 of the people and doubled the number to do signature…”
“The expectation is that they will receive the forms in the same spirit in which they were presented,” he said.
The EC has set tomorrow to give a final declaration as to which of the eight aspirants will take part in the election .
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