Disqualified Five: There should be room for appeal - EC told

Political Analyst Jonathan Asante-Otchere has said there should be room for appeal for the disqualified presidential aspirants to clear their names.

According to him, disqualifying the candidates on mere grounds of technicalities is not enough.

“There should be room for appeal – yes there should be room for appeal unless probably and programmatically the Electoral Commission is trying to put together the final register by next month that is why they will not want to entertain this. But I think that the principle of the rule of law and democracy is fair hearing.”

The EC on Monday cleared 12 presidential aspirants to contest the December 7 elections.

Five of the presidential aspirants, however, lost their bid to contest as they were disqualified outright on technical grounds.

The five are Kofi Koranteng (Independent Candidate), Marricke Kofi Gane (Independent Candidate), Akwasi Addai Odike (United Progressive Party), Kwasi Busumbru (People’s Action Party) and Nana Agyenim Boateng (United Front Party).

Speaking on the 3FM‘s Sunrise morning show, Mr Asante Otchere said the decision is an indictment on the integrity of the candidates.

According to him, “the idea of disqualifying these people is more or less an indictment on their integrity”.

“If we allowed the EC to prevent an opportunity of these people seeking redress from the EC themselves first and if they are not satisfied they can then go to court to clear their names.”

According to the Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, “they have handed over the dossier to the police CID [and] that means they will have to investigate and prosecute these people because it is alleged they have forged their documents and disqualified on technical grounds so these would have to be probed further.”

“ When I listen to Akwasi Addai Odike, he alluded to political reasons as the fundamental basis for his disqualification why because he is an Ashanti and that the president wouldn’t want his votes in the Ashanti Region to be tampered with” .

He said the independent candidate Kofi Gane’s disqualification really came as a surprise to him because the man is an affable and well vexed on issues of governance.

He also added that the EC did not show leadership because they pretended to hide behind something only to disqualify the candidates.

“Apart from the fact that the number of people contesting is actually high, the EC is the administrator of the elections so what you have to do is to show the way. You don’t have to be behind something as a way of letting the way operate in ignorance in order to disqualify them.”