GJA to elect new leaders on Friday

Members of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), in good standing, will on Friday, September 29, 2017, go to the polls to elect new national and regional executives, to steer the affairs of the Association for the next three years.

In all 656 members of the Association are expected to cast their votes for their preferred candidates.

The Elections Committee of the GJA, chaired by Mr Ben Assorow, in an earlier press statement, said elections would be held nationwide from 0800 hours to 1600 hours.

Eligible voters are supposed to produce a GJA identity card or any national identification card before he or she would be allowed to vote.

The polling centres for the elections are as follows: Greater Accra and Tema would be at the International Press Centre, Ghana News Agency (GNA), Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), New Times Corporation, Graphic Communications Group Limited and Obonu FM in Tema.

The polling centres for the regions are: GNA premises for Volta, Press Centre for Western, Electoral Commission premises for Eastern and Brong Ahafo, and the Information Service premises for Upper East.

Others are the Press Centre for Upper West, GBC for Northern Region and Graphic Communication Group premises for Central Region.

The elections would be supervised by the Electoral Commission officials, in collaboration with the GJA Elections Committee.

At the national level, Mr Roland Affail Monney, the incumbent President, is facing keen contest from two other candidates; Mr Lloyd Evans and Mr Johnnie Aryeetey.

The Vice Presidential slot has the highest number of persons with four candidates, namely; Mrs Linda Asante-Agyei, Mrs Tina Aforo-Yeboah, Mr Matthew Mac-Kwame and Mr Francis Kokutse.

The incumbent General Secretary, Mr David Agbenu, is facing strong competition from Mr Kofi Yeboah.

The Organising Secretary position is being contested by Mr Albert Kwabena Dwumfour and Vance Azu, while Ms Mary Mensah and Nii Adjei Klu are contesting for the Public Affairs position respectively.

The elections, which should have been held in March this year, delayed following an earlier disqualification of some aspiring candidates, including Mr Lloyd Evans and Mr Matthew Mac-Kwame.

The Elections Dispute Adjudicating Committee (EDAC) of the GJA was petitioned but because of the short period for hearing their petitions before March 31, the election was postponed indefinitely at the request of the EDAC.

After hearing the petitions, the ELAC said: “Candidates who were disqualified from contesting the election on the basis other than (i) not being members or (ii) whose membership was below three years should be given the opportunity to contest the elections”.

That means that Mr Evans and Mr Mac-Kwame were to be given the opportunity to contest, but the Elections Committee re-opened nominations for all prospective candidates.

However, that move was challenged by four other candidates who contended that the move was “unconstitutional”.

The case ended up at the Accra High Court and later resolved through mediation after the litigating parties agreed on a settlement procedure on Friday, July 28, 2017, which paved the way for the elections to be held on Friday, September 29.

The terms of the settlement of the dispute are as follows: All candidates are entitled to have polling agents at all polling centres, all candidates are entitled to have agents at the collation centres, a definite number of agents at all the polling and collation centres for each candidate, collation centre must be determined in consultation with all the parties and there must be transparent and open channels of communication before, during and after the elections.

It is expected that these terms of settlement would be strictly adhered to during the elections to avoid any post-election dispute.