The Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr. Eric Bossman Asare, has said his outfit is yet to include the Amenfi Central candidate of the NDC on the ballot paper.
He says the Commission is yet to receive the official ruling of the court to add the woman who was excluded from the polls back in the contest.
Joana Gyan Cudjoe, the NDC parliamentary candidate for Amenfi Central was disqualified by the EC following an injunction that was placed on her candidacy.
A ballot paper was earlier printed by the EC which did not include Madam Cudjoe whose case was still pending in court. However, the court in its final ruling asked that the woman be added back to the contest.
In an exclusive with TV3’s Eric Mawuena Egbeta Wednesday, November 13, 2024, Dr. Bossman Asare noted that it the court’s decision that made them disqualify the woman and if the same court has said she should be added, the Commission has got no say.
However, what is needed to officially add her to the ballot is the official ruling of the court.
“The Commission made it very clear that we are a law abiding institution. Whatever the court will say, we are going to abide by that and as you rightly pointed out, the candidate was disqualified on the basis of the injunction so the Commission made it very clear [that] once this injunction is removed, the Commission has no choice.
“And as we speak now we are waiting for a copy of the ruling. Once we receive that particular copy, then that means the permission has been granted. So once we receive a copy of the ruling, we’ll go by that. Currently we’ve just heard in the media, nothing concrete has come to us so once it comes to us, we’ll make sure we do the needful.
“On the basis of the law, –the judgement of the court –we used that to disqualify the candidate so if the same court in their wisdom they are saying that that injunction is no longer in force, it has been removed, then the Commission must do the needful,” he stressed.
He added that there is currently no time bound for Madam Cudjoe to be added to the ballot, indicating there is as much time as possible to fix the issue since the elections are at least over 20 days away.
“So far I can’t stick to a particular time frame because we still have almost about 24 more days to election so from the Commission’s stand point, I think we have enough quality time to be able to get this thing done,” he added.
