Monday, October 27, 2008

The Drama, Fun, And The Disqualified Candidates

By Edmund Mingle
Tuesday, 21 October 2008

The filing of nominations for the presidential election ended last Friday devoid of the tension that characterised the first day but there was plenty of drama, fun and humour.
For instance, one of the aspiring candidates, Prophet Daniel Nkansah of the New Vision Party (NVP), arrived at the Electoral Commission (EC) with an Imam as his running mate and was surrounded by bodyguards.
He presented only one-half of the forms and even the half were not fully completed.When the EC Chairman, Dr. Kwadwo Afrari-Gyan, asked for the rest of the forms, Prophet Nkansah, who looked confused, dashed out of the room and never returned until nominations closed.
Dan Lartey of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) arrived at the Electoral Commission office at 3:30pm but insisted he would be the last to present his forms.
He, therefore, allowed others like T. N. Ward Brew of the Democratic People’s Party (DPP), Kwabena Adjei of the Reformed Patriotic Party and Warrant Officer Class One Tetteh, an Independent Candidate, to go before him.
When Mr Lartey finally appeared before the Commissioners at 5:15pm, 15 minutes after the deadline, he pleaded with the EC Chairman, Dr. Afari-Gyan, to give him an hour more to enable his General Secretary, who he claimed had been caught in traffic, to get to the Commission with the forms.
The chairman agreed and gave him a 30-minute grace period but when the General Secretary arrived with the forms, the Commissioners detected a lot of anomalies.
Some of them had not been endorsed by his supporters from the various constituencies.

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