Ghana’s elections which is to end almost two decades of President Jerry John Rawlings’ rule has move to the Supreme Court for the second time.
The Electoral Commission (EC) was this afternoon served with a writ following a suit filed by the Democratic People’s Party (DPP), one of the two small parties in alliance with the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), to restrain the EC from transferring votes of thousands of students who will be on vacation during the presidential run-offs scheduled for December 28.
The EC had announced that heads of institutions, which will be on vacation during the run-off should submit names of their students to the Commission to enable it effect a temporary transfer to the constituency where they will be spending the holidays.
The DPP says the EC’s action is illegal. But the Electoral Commission says its action is to ensure that no illegible voter is disenfranchised. A Joy FM news report says the court will begin hearing the case on Friday.
On December 4, the Supreme Court seating on a case brought before it by a voter, believe to have been sponsored by the NDC, ruled that both thumbprint and photo identity cards were valid as document for voting. The plaintiff in that case had alleged that the EC’s move to make the thumbprint ID invalid as a form of identification for voting was going to disenfranchise him in the elections held on December 7.
In the first run of the elections Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) obtained 48.17 percent of valid votes cast whiles Prof. John Evans Atta Mills of the ruling National Democratic Congress had 44.54. This necessitated a run-off election since none of the candidates obtain more than 50 percent of the votes as required by the country’s constitution.
