Twelve political parties and three independent aspirants have so far downloaded nomination forms to contest the 2020 Presidential Election.

A source at the Electoral Commission(EC) said after a meeting on Friday afternoon, eight political parties, including the National Democratic Congress, New Patriotic Party, and Ghana Union Movement indicated their dates of submission.

The source said the EC was hopeful that all the parties and independent presidential aspirants would file their nominations in time after downloading the forms successfully.

According to the Commission’s timetable, presidential and parliamentary aspirants for December 7, 2020, General Election will file nominations from Monday, October 5 to Friday, October 9.

Presidential aspirants are expected to present their completed nomination forms and a bankers‘ draft of GH¢100,000 to the Electoral Commission at its head office in Accra.

Parliamentary aspirants will submit their forms and a bankers’ draft of GH¢10,000 to the Commission’s offices in the constituencies.

The Electoral Commission on September 15, 2020, opened nomination for presidential and parliamentary aspirants for the December polls.

The aspirants are to download the forms from the EC’s website and submit the same as part of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19.

In past elections, filing of nominations was done in two days but it has been increased to five days for the 2020 polls.

The filing fee will be refunded to any presidential candidate who gets 25 per cent of the total valid votes cast.

For parliamentary candidates, a refund will be given to candidates who get 12.5 per cent of total valid votes cast.

However, aspirants who are disqualified after filing nominations will not be given any refund.

The EC Chairperson at a press conference to open the filing of nomination said, "To ensure the security and integrity of the nomination process, each political party will be provided with a unique password to enable them to access the password-protected nomination forms..."