The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has announced plans to take legal action following its disqualification from the 2024 Presidential Election.
On Friday, September 20, 2024, the Electoral Commission disclosed that 11 presidential candidates, including Kofi Asamoah-Siaw of the PPP, had been disqualified.
This marks the second time the party has pursued legal action after facing a similar disqualification in 2016.
In an interview with Citi News, PPP National Chairman Nana Ofori Owusu explained that their decision to seek legal redress arises from the EC’s alleged failure to allow the party to correct errors on its nomination forms.
Mr. Owusu also criticized the Electoral Commission, accusing it of significant incompetence in managing the situation.
“It is a grave injustice and it’s also sad for Ghana. It exposes the incompetence of Jean Mensa the head of the Electoral Commission. It is de’ja vu, it happened in 2016. The same error they committed in 2016. That the court’s revenge is the same error they have committed now.
“You know the PPP submitted all the necessary documentation to the EC within the stipulated time frame. Then the EC replied to the Progressive People’s Party facing exactly what they wanted us to correct. On the form, they listed pages… for us to go and correct.
“We corrected these pages and resubmitted back to the Electoral Commission. When we submitted to the electoral commission, they have been incommunicado from the time that we submitted the document to them until today.
Now, today we only hear when other colleagues were saying that they have been invited to the electoral commission at 04:00 p.m. but we were not informed of anything of the light.
“So quickly, in the morning, we wrote a letter to the electoral commission seeking an explanation as to why our name was not part of the names that they had listed. Around 1:14 via WhatsApp, the electoral commission responded to our request upon the request that they brought, all that they said was that they regretted there were some errors in the document. You see the law of natural justice.
“They should have called us back, just like the first one and discussed what the reasons are for either omitting us or adding to us. You took the decision already and then after we wrote the letter to you, you responded as to why, in a very vague letter.
“It is gross incompetence and it is a form of violating my natural right to due process. We are going to court without any ambiguity.
We know that 2016 is the PPP that took the electoral commission to court, that reinstated all the people they had been kicked out. A similar thing will happen in 2024 because they have not learnt,” he stated.
