The Electoral Commission has told Citi News that it disqualified 24 parliamentary nominees in the Ashanti Region because they failed to pay the GHc10,000 filing fee.
The Commission on Thursday announced that, only 216 of the total of 240 aspirants have been cleared to contest in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The EC pegged nomination forms for parliamentary aspirants at GHc10,000, whiles presidential aspirants paid GHc50,000.
Some political parties expressed concern that the fees were high, however the EC did not review the amount.
Mr. Serebour Quarcoo, the Ashanti Regional Communications Director of the EC in an interview on the Citi Prime News said candidates who filed on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), New Patriotic Party (NPP), Convention People’s Party (CPP) and the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) were not part of those disqualified in the region.
“Those who filed for NDC, NPP, CPP and PPP, they all concluded the process so those disqualified are from the other parties,” he said.
He said that none of the aspirants was disqualified on the grounds of improper completion of their nomination forms.
He said, “filing for the parliamentary is very simple; you can get all the twenty people [to endorse you] from your house unlike the Presidential where you need two from each district of the country that is quite cumbersome.”
He explained that, the Regional office is currently awaiting balloting from the EC Head office in Accra to know the position of each candidate on the ballot.
‘Electoral materials ready’
Mr. Serebour Quarcoo said his office has taken delivery of most of the electoral materials ahead of the December polls.
He added that it was however waiting to receive the ballot papers from the EC head office in Accra.
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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana