The Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) has dismissed assertions that it is behind time in its preparation for the upcoming general elections in December 2016.
According to the Commission, despite the many lawsuits it has been saddled with ahead of the elections, it is on course with arrangements to hold successful polls.
[contextly_sidebar id=”ynvmPrZcofvB3VwgQT5OpRa1pP4S7xoN”]A Deputy Commissioner of the EC, Georgina Opoku Amankwah told Citi News, the electoral body has been forced to change its arrangement for balloting due to the court actions.
The EC has on previous occasions held only one balloting exercise to determine the position of the various parliamentary and presidential candidates on the ballot paper but it has been forced to hold separate balloting exercises for the parliamentary and presidential elections due a legal action brought against it by the Progressive People’s Party.
The PPP secured an injunction to halt the balloting process for presidential candidates earlier last week.
Georgina Amankwah said, “the circumstances we find ourselves in towards the 2016 elections is not anything ordinary. We are inundated with court processes with regards to [the] presidential slot so there is no way we can go ahead and ballot for the presidential. That is why the Commission met and took the decision that [for] the parliamentary contest that involves a lot of people and do not have anything untoward by way of legal issues so we start with that process.”
She said, “what we are doing today only affect the parliamentary contest and so when we are done with all the legal suits concerning the presidential slots then we will come back for the parties involved to also ballot.”
Amadu Sulley, a Deputy Commissioner at the EC in charge of operations told Citi FM’s Franklin Badu Junior that the Commission still has adequate time to prepare for the polls. According to him, nothing is being rushed to complete their preparations.
“Do you see a rush? When we have 48 days to election day, by now we would have finished printing our ballots but we’ve been assured that the will finished the printing and then we go on,” he said.
‘NDC, NPP pick number 3 and 5 spots for parliamentary ballot’
The governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Thursday picked the third and fifth spot respectively on the parliamentary ballot for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) will be first on the ballot followed by the Progressive People’s Party, second. The United People’s Party will be fourth on the ballot with the National Democratic Party being sixth on the ballot paper.
Parliamentary candidates for the Independent People’s Party will be seventh on the ballot on December 7.
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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana