Rejected parties in big loss

The Electoral Commission (EC) has rejected the nominations of four political parties and one Independent Candidate.

These parties, who failed to properly fill out their nomination forms and were caught by the deadline for the submission of forms, are now crying over the loss they have incurred.

The founder of the Independent Peoples Party (IPP), Kofi Akpaloo, some few days ago vented his spleen on the EC for rejecting his nomination after all the resources he had put into forming and registering his party.

“The EC wants all my resources to go to waste,” Akpaloo lamented.

The rejected parties complained that it costs much to form a political party in Ghana. Apart from buying the forms from the EC, a party must travel to all 275 constituencies to get people to endorse their form.

After going through all these processes, parties had to pick nomination forms and pay a fee of GHC 10,000 ($5, 208), for their presidential candidates, something many political parties expressed reservations about.

Some of these political parties had already printed party accouterments that were going to be used for campaigning. The Presidential candidate of the IPP said he has already travelled across the country and everything was in place to start campaigning.

The IPP, along with National Democratic Party (NDP), New Vision Party (NVP), and the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP) all ended up losing their GHC 10,000. Also two political parties, Democratic People’s Party (DPP) and the United Renaissance Party, which picked nomination forms, could not submit them before the deadline.

A party like the NDP will be counting their losses in the billboards, flyers and the T-shirts already in town.

Recounting their losses, the leaders of IPP and DPP say they will petition the Electoral Commission to reconsider its decision.

“Afari Gyan was tired and needed some sleep that’s why he rejected my nomination. After all the resources I have put into this, I can’t be rejected. I’ll petition the Electoral Commission,” Kofi Akpaloo stated.

Ward Brew said he didn’t understand why the EC rejected his nomination after he had presented all the necessary documents. “I’ll petition the EC to look into this.”

More politicians are going to incur losses if a similar situation occurs at the parliamentary candidates’ level.