Why Hassan Ayariga was disqualified from contesting presidential elections in 2016

The Flagbearer of the All People’s Congress, Dr. Hassan Ayariga, has opened up about his disqualification as a presidential candidate by the Electoral Commission in 2016.

Speaking to the press after filing his nomination at the EC’s headquarters on Monday, September 9, 2024, Dr. Ayariga described his disqualification as a personal matter rather than a technical one.

According to him, the EC disqualified him due to discrepancies in the signatories on his nomination form.

Although he contested this decision, arguing that mistakes are bound to happen, the EC failed to heed to his appeal.

“I would say it was more of a personal disqualification than a technical disqualification because this is somebody who contested in 2012, filled the forms himself and qualified. And in 2016, the disqualification was based on differences in the signatory. I wrote to Madam Charlotte then, and told her signatories were not rubber stamp whereby you just stamp and have it perfectly but people are bound to make some kind of curves in their signatories.

“You can’t use that to disqualify people and as a matter of fact, I sent her four of different letters coming from her with different signatures from her own office and I said ‘you can make the comparison and see. Yours is also not a rubber stamp’,” he said.

Dr. Ayariga further disclosed that Charlotte Osei's insistence on requiring him to file new nominations, despite a court order granting him permission to contest the election, led him to reconsider his decision.

As a result, he said he postponed his presidential ambitions to 2020.

“But then what can we say? We accepted it that way, we went to court, we won the court case and were asked to go back and contest and she insisted that we have to again, do a new one and I told her ‘You know what, let’s forget it. We will go in 2020’,” he disclosed.

Dr. Ayariga added that the subsequent removal of Charlotte Osei as EC chairperson vindicated him regarding the allegations he had levelled against her.

“She herself was booted out because of misappropriation of the EC’s resources and many other allegations of misconduct so, I was actually vindicated by my statement against her and that is why she is not Electoral Commissioner anymore…,” Dr. Ayariga said.

Background

Dr Hassan Ayariga was disqualified in 2016 by the former Chairperson of the EC, Charlotte Osei, for failing to meet the necessary requirements that makes them eligible to contest.

In its explanation, the electoral body said Dr Ayariga did not provide evidence on his statutory declaration as to his hometown or residence in the constituency as per the legal requirements.

Additionally, the EC observed that two of Ayariga's subscribers also subscribed for another presidential candidate in breach of regulations 7(4) in C.I. 94.

The signatures of the two subscribers of Dr Ayariga were also different on the forms of the other presidential candidate even though their voter details were the same and therefore raised questions on the legitimacy of the signatures.

Dr Ayariga contested the case in court of that same year and won but did not contest in the elections.

MAG/AE