Legal practitioner John Ndebugri says the 12 disqualified presidential candidates demonstrate a wrong understanding of the law when they argue that the Electoral Commission used mere cleric errors as a basis to reject their nomination papers.
He has stressed that the EC 12 based on serious violation of the law and not simple clerical errors as they claim.
The position of the disqualified candidates that the EC should have called them to correct the errors is an argument likely to be dismissed in court, he maintained.
Presidential candidates of PPP Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, NDP, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings and GCPP’s Dr. Henry Lartey have each assembled lawyers ready to challenge their disqualification in court.
Apart from the Ghana Freedom Party’s flagbearer’s candidate Akua Donkor, the seven others have signalled they could challenge their disqualification in the coming days. The EC has been given a deadline from the PPP and NDP to rescind their disqualification by close of day Friday.
But speaking on the impending legal challenges, Ndebugri predicted that “they may go and will be thrown out”. In the case of the PPP’s Presidential candidate, Ndebugri was emphatic that “the court will throw out Nduom’s case”.
Explaining his position, he said the law governing elections requires that each candidate must be endorsed by 432 voters with two endorsers from each of the 216 districts.
In the case of Nduom, he said one voter endorsed Nduom twice in different districts.
“When you take that name out you are left with 431 and so you are disqualified… can’t you see that he is short by one person”?
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