There is a possibility that the courts of the land will place an injunction on the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections if any of the aggrieved disqualified presidential aspirants sues the Electoral Commission (EC) and is able to argue its case out well, a senior law lecturer at the Ghana School of Law, Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang, has said.
His comment follows threats issued by the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), the All People’s Congress (APC) and the United Freedom Party (UFP) to sue the EC over the disqualification of their flag bearers, a situation which could stall the December 7 polls.
Mr Hassan Ayariga, flag bearer of the APC, told Emefa Apawu on Class91.3FM’s ‘505’ programme on Monday evening after the EC had announced their disqualification that: “This will not work, I will put an injunction on the election and we will have another election and not in 2016. The elections will go to 2020.”
Describing his disqualification as absurd, Mr Ayariga explained that the reasons for his disqualification did not make sense “because the same identifications you gave me to use as a voter is the same document I used to fill the document”, adding: “So, Ghanaians should now tell me: Am I really disqualified or it’s a deliberate attempt, because it doesn’t make sense. So far as I am concerned, it doesn’t make sense. Nobody will listen to this. That is why I am very upset. You cannot disqualify somebody based on the same documents you gave him.”
Also speaking in an interview with Emefa Apawu, Mr Opoku-Agyemang said: “Of course it is a possibility [that the election could be put on hold]. Have you forgotten the collection of GHS50,000 fees were put on hold? …Injunction is an equitable decision by the court. They (courts) will do a balancing act but I think flowing from the jurisprudence of our courts with the Mensah and the Electoral Commission case which brought the whole local government elections on hold, and the recent one which brought the GHS50,000 filing fee on hold for the time being, I think there is a possibility.”
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