EC absolves itself from blame in Konadu’s disqualification

Counsel for the Electoral Commission Thaddeus Sory says the flagbearer of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, cannot blame the commission for her disqualification from the 2016 presidential election list.

According to the counsel, the cause of Mrs. Rawlings’ disqualification should squarely be placed on her inability to comply with regulations stipulated by law for persons aspiring to the office of the president.

In a response to a letter filed by the counsel for Mrs. Rawlings, Thaddeus Sory said the NDP flagbearer was given the opportunity as required under C.I. 94 make the necessary alterations to her nomination forms and she “accordingly affected the appropriate amendments or alterations”. Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings and 11 others were disqualified on Monday by the Electoral Commission from contesting the December 7 presidential election.

The decision is being challenged by Mrs. Rawlings, which she instructed her lawyer Ace Ankomah to formally expressed her disagreement to the EC and the possibility of she taking legal action to get her name added to the list of presidential candidate.

But the response from Thaddeus Sory to Mrs. Rawlings dated October 13, 2016, stated: “Our client’s instructions to us in so far as its inability to accept your client’s nomination papers is concerned is that, the process prescribed by C.I.94 was duly followed for which reason our client maintains that it acted in accordance with due process, the procedure it applied being the staturily regulated position.”

The Electoral Commission had explained that Mrs. Rawlings was disqualified because one of her subscribers was on EC’s exclusion list of persons who are ineligible to vote for engaging in multiple registration. But the EC’s lawyer’s letter stated that the insistence by Mrs. Rawlings that the said subscriber has not been convicted by law based on which she should not have been disqualified as “absurd”.