The Deputy Director of Elections and IT for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Rashid Tanko Computer, has criticized the Electoral Commission (EC) for failing to grant a fair hearing to disqualified presidential candidates before announcing their disqualification.
Speaking on The Big Issue on Channel One TV, Tanko argued that the EC should not disqualify candidates solely based on errors in their nomination forms.
He emphasized that the disqualified aspirants should have been given the opportunity to correct their mistakes, in line with the principles of fairness.
He further pointed out that the EC, as an institution, has made errors on numerous occasions and questioned the fairness of its decision to disqualify candidates without allowing them to rectify the identified issues.
Tanko's remarks come after the EC's press conference on September 20, where 11 presidential hopefuls were disqualified from contesting in the 2024 general elections. "I think that natural justice demands that they should have given them hearing, listened to them and see.
Because if they are to use errors to disqualify them then all the commissioners should be disqualified from sitting there as commissioners.
Because this is an error-ridden electoral commission. "An electoral commission which time and again is being corrected every day.
You remember the episode of the registration exercise.
They were churning out the wrong figures.
Three times, my boss Dr Omane Boamah had to issue epistles to correct them and this borders on the register. "You still have the same electoral commission that came out with a provisional register, which has a lot of anomalies being put out there and you gave this wrong data to people to go and file nominations.
I don't think you have every moral right to disqualify anybody based on that.
Because this your data is not even credible," he stated.
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