EC’s disqualification of candidates contestable – Prof Ocquaye

A legal luminary and Chairperson of the New Patriotic Party(NPP) Legal and Constitutional Committee, Prof. Mike Oquaye has said the Electoral Commission’s disqualification of some Presidential hopefuls is contestable citing some flaws in the underpinning issues backing the EMB’s claims.

He wondered why the EC will go ahead and disqualify a candidate based on a subscriber’s inclusion in an exclusion list, which he argues is within the peculiar knowledge of the commission till date.

Commenting on the fall out of the disqualification saga in an interview with sit-in host Kweku Owusu Adjei on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.5 FM, Prof. Ocquaye said “the exclusion list should be made public otherwise everybody would treat them as genuine so long as they hold and produce a card from the EC. ”

He queried”how do you become double sure? even the persons on the exclusion list might not know they are on it.”

Several Presidential candidates have had their nominations nullified following what the EC has cited as anomalies in relation to their nominations.

Former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings is one of the victims who missed out on running for the presidency because one of her guarantors is on the exclusion list of multiple voters.

Briefing the media on Monday, Chairperson of the EC explained that “the Commission is unable to accept Mrs. Rawlings’ 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 is not a validly registered voter and illegally registered twice and so is on the Exclusion list of multiple voters.”

But Prof. Ocquaye said the EC is to blame for all such lapses since it did not do due diligence by going ahead to either publish such exclusion list and to a large extent possibly effect criminal prosecution against such persons.

He added: “a person who is purported to register twice must be prosecuted. Why has the EC not gone by the law?

According to him, these are highly contestable there are contestable issues insisting that it’s only in the discretion of the court to determine the way forward as to whether such decisions could be upheld as disqualification by operation of the law.