The flag bearer of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), Dr Henry Herbert Lartey, has described portions of Ghana’s electoral laws that require presidential nominees to fill nomination forms as draconian that must be scrapped from the statute books.

Dr Lartey was among 11 other presidential aspirants disqualified by the Electoral Commission (EC) for errors discovered on their nomination forms ahead of the polls on 7 December.

Although the EC later gave him and other disqualified nominees the opportunity to correct the errors on their forms per a Supreme Court ruling, Dr Lartey was disqualified for the second time after resubmitting his form to the election management body.

Reacting to his disqualification on Inside Politics on Class91.3FM on Monday 21 November, Dr Lartey said the filling of nomination forms should be scrapped.

“I think that law itself is a bad law, it’s a draconian law that was put in and I wonder why the drafters of the constitution put it in in the first place. If you look at the UK and you become leader of the party straight away, you can stand for elections and become Prime Minister.

I’m sure United States as well, once you’ve won the primaries you don’t go and fill in a nomination form and then you have 15 people who sit down and then decide whether you become a presidential candidate or not. I think that [law]has to be removed, it’s a bad law, it’s not a very good law. Despite the fact that some people may think we didn’t do our job and we failed, it’s not a good law, we have to remove it from our statute books,” he told show host Moro Awudu.

According to the EC, Dr Lartey was disqualified because the number of subscribers to his forms did not meet the requirements of Regulation 7 (2) (b) of CI 94.