Electoral Petitions Against EC Disposed Of For Lack Of Evidence
Monday June 29, 2009
By David Yarboi-Tetteh, Cape Coast
A total of 16 out of 23 electoral petitions or disputes filed against the Electoral Commission (EC) have so far been dealt with by the courts.
The Director of Human Resource of the Commission, Samuel Yorke-Aidoo, who made this known said the cases were disposed of for lack of evidence or want of jurisdiction.
He was speaking at a workshop for selected media practitioners on the 2008 election coverage here at the weekend.
The workshop sought to analyse media reportage of the 2008 elections and to strategise on how to develop effective election coverage in subsequent presidential and parliamentary elections.
Mr York-Aidoo further said that even though the settlement of the cases was not as fast as expected, it was better than previous years when cases dragged in the court for four years.
He commended the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Woode, for establishing election dispute guidelines for the courts.
On the challenge of election result, he said, aggrieved political parties could challenge the result at the court within 21 days after the publication of the results by the EC.
Mr York-Aidoo further urged media practitioners to exercise utmost care in their reportage since wrong use of language could affect an election.
The Deputy Chairman of the EC, Dr David Kanga, in his remarks, called on Ghanaians not to keep quiet and allow politicians to perpetuate their wrong agendas.
He said the EC, in subsequent elections, would be looking at evolving a system where policing of the polls would involve the entire population instead of the political party agents.
The political party agents, he said, had not done enough in elections since they were always cutting each other.
Dr Kanga further expressed concern about the high number of rejected votes in the 2008 elections and said the Commission would carry out an analysis of the rejected ballots.
Posted under
Politics
Comments
