We didn't favour NDC and NPP - EC

The assistant head of communications at the Electoral Commission [EC] has debunked claims of favouritism indicating that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) would have been disqualified if “there were mistakes” in their nomination forms.

In an interview with UTV’s morning show host Yaa Konama, Mr. Yussif Alhassan Ayuba indicated “we [commissioners] were shocked most of the presidential aspirants wanting to lead this nation could not fill the required forms without mistakes, to the extent that some candidates left blank their personal information pages. In addition every political party was given a guide book to help it be on course in filing the more than 100 pages nomination form correctly...”

According to him, the Commission did not accept the forms of the NDC and NPP just because they are the two leading political parties with strong party members; rather it was because they filled their forms rightly as required of them by the commission.

He stressed “we would have wished to give the disqualified presidential aspirants a chance to correct their nomination forms if we had our own laws under which we operate. Unfortunately, we cannot do that until the laws of this country is changed to permit us do that. In fact there is nothing we can do for them to contest the up-coming elections because we don’t depend on our own powers”.