We can’t hold Presidential ballot now following court actions – EC

The Electoral Commission(EC) has restrained itself from conducting balloting for positions on the slot for Presidential Candidates standing in this years elections until further notice, Head of Communications at the EC, Eric Dzapkasu disclosed on Kasapa 102.5 FM Thursday.

He stressed that although balloting will commence today for parliamentary candidates, the commission is unable to repeat same for the Presidential slot because of the pockets of legal matters the Election Management Body(EMB) is faced with.

“Normally the practice has been that when parties ballot for positions for the Presidential slot it ultimately affects the parliamentary as well, but in view of the court cases we can’t hold the ballot for Presidential now. We’ll conduct the parliamentary balloting first and put a hold on the Presidential ballot pending the final determination of Supreme court on the legal issues affecting the Presidential slot.” Mr. Eric Dzakpasu told sit-in host Kweku Owusu Adjei on Anopa Kasapa.

He however dismissed claims that this could likely confuse electorates on the ballot paper vis a vis the difference in the positions of both Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

The Electoral Commission(EC) will today start an exercise to conduct ballots for parliamentary candidates of the various political parties cleared to contest in the December 2016 elections.

The balloting by the Election Management Body(EMB) will afford candidates for the various parties a fair opportunity to pick their slots on the ballot paper.

It comes at a time when the commission is battling some legal matters in court over its decision to disqualify some 12 aspirants from taking part in the December polls.