Flagbearer of the All People’s Congress (APC) says he will transform the Electoral Commission (EC) by bringing in experienced people to man the affairs of the Commission if he becomes the President of Ghana.
According to him, the commission is made up of a “bunch of incompetent members” who do not deserve to occupy such a high positions as Commissioners.
Reacting to the 95 errors identified by the EC on his nomination forms, Hassan Ayariga described the development as “ambush tactics” aimed at kicking the APC out of the 2016 presidential race.
Their mistakes according to the EC merited their disqualification announced last month.
The EC at a press conference in October revealed the specific errors that flouted the Public Elections Regulations (CI 94).
Several political parties stormed the EC head office to meet a 24-hour deadline set by the Supreme Court in its orders to the EC to allow 12 disqualified presidential candidates to correct their mistakes.
In a unanimous decision read by presiding judge Justice Sophia Adinyira, the Supreme Court ordered the EC to extend the nomination period from yesterday to the close of work today, November 8, 2016, to allow all the disqualified candidates to correct their errors.
The court directed the EC to invite the interested parties and all the presidential candidates, who were able to submit their nomination papers by the close of the nomination day on September 30, 2016 and were disqualified without a hearing and give them hearing, within the extended period.
According to the ruling, the EC should, in appropriate cases, afford candidates, the opportunity to comply with regulation 9 (2) of the Public Elections Regulations, 2016 (C. I.94).
The judges also ordered a suspension of all lawsuits challenging the EC’s disqualifications of flagbearers, for all those affected to amend the errors on their forms on the same issue of having been denied a hearing to enable the EC to carry out its mandate in line with these orders.
But according to Hassan Ayariga, though his party has been able to submit their revised forms after the commission pointed out a huge amount of mistakes in his forms, he believes the actions of the EC chair, Madam Charlotte Osei leave a lot to be desired.
“EC boss doesn’t respect smaller parties. All she knows is to sit in her office and give unnecessary instructions which don’t favour us. She talks to us like small children. I want her to know that the EC is not bigger.
“That is why I want to become President because I will change incompetent EC and bring in competent people if I become president of Ghana” he stated.
The Electoral Commission will today Wednesday announce the number of initially disqualified candidates who have managed to qualify for the December polls, after being given the opportunity to correct errors in their nomination forms.
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