The Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) has indicated that the death of Akua Donkor, the presidential candidate of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), for the pending 2024 presidential elections, posed a novel challenge for the commission.

Speaking in an interview on GHOne TV on Monday, November 18, 2024, the Deputy Chairman of the EC in charge of Corporate Services, Dr. Eric Bossman Asare, indicated that the challenge emanated from the fact that there were no existing laws on how to deal with instances of presidential candidates' deaths.

He said that the existing laws only cover the death of a parliamentary candidate, adding that the commission had to rely on these laws after the advice of its lawyers.

“It was a challenge. The framers of our constitution did not anticipate that a time would come when a presidential candidate would pass on. So, all the provisions in the constitution, the CIs, you realise that they are more applicable to the parliamentary candidate.

“So, we looked at the constitution and also looked at our CIs and noticed that in the constitution, Article 40(4) paints a picture of in the event that a candidate dies, the commission would give about 10 days for a replacement,” he said.

He added, “We realised that it was more applicable to the parliamentary candidates, but the commission looked at it and we were advised by our lawyers that we could still use that. So, the Commission took the decision that in the interest of fairness and to advance the frontiers of our democracy, why not give the Ghana Freedom Party an opportunity within the same 10 days to present another candidate.”

The EC deputy chairperson also stated that after the replacement presented by the GFP was disqualified, the commission met all political parties to inform them of its decision to maintain the ballot papers with Akua Donkor’s details in the number 3 position on the paper.

He said that the commission never thought of balloting for positions on the ballot paper again because more than 90% of the presidential ballots with Akua Donkor's details had already been printed.

He added that one of the electoral laws also indicates that the details of candidates in public elections who drop out of the race when the ballot papers have already been printed would remain on the ballot and all their votes be counted as invalid.

Dr. Asare indicated that all the stakeholders consented to this proposal, with the EC bearing the responsibility of educating voters on the fact that there are only 12 candidates for the 2024 presidential election even though 13 people would appear on the ballot.

BAI/AE

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