Supervising presidential, parliamentary primaries not mandatory for EC – Serebuor Quaicoe

The Electoral Commission(EC) says it is not mandatory for it to supervise Presidential and Parliamentary primaries of political parties.

It comes in the wake of the EC’s assertion that it cannot supervise the opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) upcoming primaries until issues relating to the injunction process filed by one of the Presidential candidate aspirants are resolved.

According to the Electoral Commission, it is only mandatory for the Commission to supervise party executive elections and not presidential and parliamentary primaries. This indirectly indicates that the NDC can go ahead with its primaries without the EC’s supervision.

“The NDC can hold Presidential and Parliamentary elections without the EC, but for executive, regional and constituency and national elections, they cannot. If it is executives elections, we will be there, but if it is about presidential or parliamentary primaries we will not be there. We will not be part of any election that has court issues to contend with,” the Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission, Dr. Serebuor Quaicoe stated in an interview on Morning Starr on Starr FM.

The largest opposition party, NDC goes to the polls on Saturday May 13, 2023 to elect a Flagbearer and Parliamentary candidates to contest the 2024 general elections.

Ahead of the election, one of the Presidential aspirants, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor has filed a suit against the party following what he described as some discrepancies identified in the voters register.

In a writ filed at an Accra High Court, Dr. Duffuor argued that the party had failed to provide the required photo album register five weeks ahead of the elections as stated in the party’s rules.

The businessman had raised concerns about the credibility of the photo album register and asked the party to postpone its upcoming presidential and parliamentary primaries until the proper thing was done.

But the party, through its Chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketia has stated that the elections will come off as scheduled.