Former Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament Reverend Professor Mike Aaron Oquaye is calling on the National Peace Council and other such-like bodies to intervene in the seeming “arbitrariness” of the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC).
He said the posture of the Commission does not augur well for the peace of the country.
In an interview on TV3’s News 360 on Tuesday, November 8, the former Energy Minister said the EC’s seeming “gallivanting” over the Supreme Court’s decision is subverting the rule of law.
“The matter has been brought to closure. You cannot go and bring some other things. Otherwise you will be guilty of gallivanting. In fact it will be illegal.”
The Commission was on Monday, November 7 ordered by the Supreme Court to give all disqualified presidential aspirants up to close of Tuesday, November 8 to re-file their nomination forms.
But the Commission pointed out fresh errors on the forms of some of the candidates.
Prof Oquaye says the action could be compared to the EC announcing in the near future that the two major political parties – National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) – have had the forms of their flagbearers rejected though earlier accepted.
“As at now, NPP is supposed to have qualified. NDC is supposed to have qualified. Can they go and tell NPP that we have looked at your paper and say we have found an error?
“Otherwise, it will give you unlimited room for arbitrariness which is the fundamental thing against the rule of law.”
He called on venerable bodies such as the Peace Council to immediately intervene.
“When you behave like this as a referee, you put the game in danger and that is something that I will ask the [National] Peace Council and others to take very serious because somebody is leading this country to the ditch…and I mean what I am saying…and that person must be told that is not how you perform a public function both legally and by private advice in chambers.”
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