EC TO ANNOUNCE QUALIFIED ASPIRANTS TODAY

Story by Michael Kenetey Kofi


EC TO ANNOUNCE QUALIFIED ASPIRANTS TODAY



The Electoral Commission (EC) expects to receive verification and authentication reports from the various security and revenue agencies by the close of work today, after which it will announce those qualified to contest.

The EC closed the receipt of nominations from the aspiring presidential and parliamentary candidates on ninth of this month. Since it opened the doors for the receipt of nominations on fifth of this month, the commission has been vetting the forms and referring aspects of the information to the security and the revenue agencies for authentication. 



The EC has engaged the aspirants on the processes and requirements as part of its transparency measures since it started the process. The commission has also engaged the parties before giving them the passwords to download the forms and fill them before submitting. 

The nomination forms must contain important personal details about aspirants, which will enable the EC to satisfy itself that they meet the qualifying criteria under the laws of the country. To qualify to contest for the Presidency, a person must be a citizen of Ghana by birth, a registered voter, be at least 40 years old and qualified to contest election to Parliament. 



The aspirant must have paid all relevant taxes or made satisfactory arrangements with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to pay such taxes. However, in spite of meeting such criteria, a person cannot be a presidential candidate if he or she owes allegiance to another country other than Ghana or has been adjudged or otherwise declared bankrupt under any law in force in Ghana. 

In addition, such a person must not have been discharged, or is of unsound mind, or had been detained as a criminal lunatic under any law in force in Ghana, or had been convicted for treason or for an offence involving the security of the state, fraud, dishonesty or moral turpitude. 

Furthermore, an aspirant is required to swear to a statutory declaration attesting to his or her eligibility to stand for office and the accuracy of the details provided in the nomination forms. Consequently, false statements made in the nomination forms have legal consequences.



 In the 2016 elections, the EC disqualified a number of presidential aspirants based on their inability to satisfy some aspects of the regulations that the commission has set, but a timely Supreme Court ruling gave them a window of opportunity. 

Source: Graphic online


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