As the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana sets to open nomination for presidential and Parliamentary candidates for 2020 general election, this paper wishes to caution all stakeholders especially the two leading Political parties in Ghana to further scrutinize their candidates before filing their documents.
Information available to your authoritative, The New Trust newspaper indicates that some Parliamentary aspirants awaiting registration to be candidates are still keeping their dual nationality status and double passports.
Should they fail to right every wrong before the submitting their forms, there is a high likelihood of disqualification, a situation which will inure to the benefit of their opponents.
As is very well known, the EC will have no option than to disqualify a candidate with questionable document and holders of dual citizenship.
The EC is reported to have issued the time table below for the general elections which comes up in less than 100 days.:
1) Exhibition of 2020 Voter Register
11-18/09/2020
2) Transfer of Votes
24-28/10/2020
3) Collection of Presidential & Parliamentary Forms
5/10/2020
4) Distribution of Final Voter’s Register to Parties
6/11/2020
5) Special Voting
1/12/2020
6) General Elections
7/12/2020
7) Declaration of Presidential Election Results
10/12/2020
7) Run-Off
28/12/2020
This paper is reliably informed that the governing New Patriotic Party (Npp) has set up a Committee to vet all their elected Parliamentary candidates before filling with EC.
The NDC and other parties were also said to be preparing ahead of EC ‘s filling process for both Presidential and Parliamentary candidates.
But the question begging for answers is has all elected Parliamentary candidates who had issues such as dual nationality renounced it as at date and what will be their fate when EC finally opens the nomination and close on 5th October, 2020 in less than a month time?
This paper which has been following the internal elections of the political parties is aware that a number of Parliamentary hopefuls then assured their vetting panels that when given the nod they would worked to renounce their dual citizenship before EC filling but due to Covid-19 most of the Embassies were shutdown making it difficult for such elected Parliamentary candidates to renounce it.
Stay tuned for further development in the next week’s edition
By: Isaac Amoah(Editor The New Trust News Paper)
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