Six Ghanaian parties disqualified from contesting 2012 presidential polls

The dreams of six political parties to contest the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections were dashed when their nomination forms were rejected by the Electoral Commission (EC) at the close of nominations Thursday.

They are the National Democratic Party (NDP), New Vision Party (NVP), Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), the Independent People’s Party (IPP), YES People’s Party and the Democratic Freedom Party.

Presidential aspirants, Prophet Daniel Nkansah, NVP; Akua Donkor, GFP and Kofi Akpaloo, tried to convince the EC boss to give them time to complete the forms but to no avail.

The Chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan told them that the premises of the EC were not the place for the filling of forms, and that their parties should have done that before going to the EC.

The representatives of NDP, led by the Deputy Director of Communication, Mr Ernest Owusu-Bempah, arrived at the conference room of the EC at about 4.30 p.m. making frantic efforts to complete the filing of the forms.

However, the forms were found to be incomplete, and were advised to go back and complete the process.

At about 6.18 p.m. the Chairman of the EC, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, announced that the six parties had failed to complete their nomination forms, and therefore, were disqualified.

He added, however, that if the representatives of the parties wanted to contest the assertion that there were gaps in their forms they could bring the forms forward for all present to scrutinise them, “otherwise the day is over”.

It was then that the NDP representatives brought their forms to the Chairman of the EC who examined them in the presence of the media and other party representatives.

After thorough examination, it was observed that the forms were partially complete with many gaps to be filled.
Dr Afari-Gyan then declared that nominations had been closed.

A representative of the NDP Bediako Joseph, suspected sabotage by some members of the NDP itself, leading to the late submission of the forms.

The NDP representative who was so angry at the turn of events, was of the view that it was a ploy to return the NDP to the NDC fold, and said he would reject any such move.

Source: Daily Graphic