The Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to as a matter of urgency pull back from the brink of electoral and potential constitutional chaos as it could do more harm than good to the democracy of the country.

The group described as 'deeply troubling the new twist by the Electoral Commission EC on the issues surrounding the nomination forms of the disqualified presidential aspirants.

The group said it had taken note of the forward looking and unprecedented ruling of the Supreme Court (SC) on November 7, 2016, ordering the EC to allow all disqualified presidential aspirants to correct the errors on their forms and re-submit them to the Commission by close of day yesterday, November 8, 2016.

A statement released in Accra yesterday noted that the Center was dismayed by the news that the EC, at this late stage in the electoral process claimed it had discovered new errors on the nomination forms of the disqualified presidential aspirants, adding that the Center found that new twist to the processing of nomination forms of presidential aspirants deeply troubling.

The statement explained that, it was the EC that took the matter to the SC, ostensibly to bring finality to the many suits at the courts, challenging its decision to disqualify a number of presidential aspirants. The EC implored the SC to invoke its supervisory jurisdiction in order to avert a constitutional crisis, taking into account the time sensitive nature of the 2016 electoral timetable.

“It is difficult to comprehend the EC's decision to introduce new issues that have the potential to instigate new legal suits, which the Supreme Court in its lucid ruling and extraordinary consequential orders, had sought to abate – after the Court has heeded to the EC's pleadings and issued pragmatic orders for management of the process.

In our view, the claim of new errors after the Supreme Court ruling is manifestly unfair and a breach of administrative justice.

According to the statement, the disqualified presidential aspirants went to court against the backdrop that the EC had detailed reasons for disqualifying them (aspirants), so that if the court ruled in their favour they would have to correct the errors publicly identified, before they went to court.

Therefore, all presidential aspirants had a legitimate expectation that they would be asked to correct the mistakes that were publicly identified by the EC as reasons for their disqualification, and that anything more than that is an improper use of discretionary power.

“The Center wishes to remind the EC and all key election stakeholders that democratic governance and credible elections in particular are what is at stake for Ghanaians and for Ghana on December 7.

“Failure to manage the electoral process puts our democracy at risk. Per the electoral calendar, we have already missed the original date for the publication of the Notice of Poll, which will now be published, hopefully, on Thursday, 10th November 2016, in accordance with Supreme Court orders – that is if the parties do not return to court.

“We commend the Chief Justice and the Judiciary for the display of great proactivity and acting with a sense of urgency and responsibility. Every effort must therefore be made to support their initiative.

“However, the EC, presidential aspirants and all stakeholders in Ghana's democratic governance must understand that it is not healthy or safe for the Supreme Court of the land to be the only institution for preventing descent into political chaos.

“The Center respectively calls on the EC to pull back from the brink of electoral and potential constitutional chaos, as well as collapse of our nascent democratic experiment, and to allow the disqualified aspirants to correct the errors that formed the basis of their earlier disqualification, as ordered by the Supreme Court.

“Quick compliance with the orders will also afford the EC a little more time to carry out critical tasks ahead of this election including, educating voters about the voting procedure as well as some of the new innovations it has introduced to deal with rejected ballots and the transmission of results.

“We call on all civil society organizations, professional bodies, faith-based groups, youth groups, the union movement, academia, and indeed on all citizens of Ghana to support the Center's call to the EC to avoid a potential constitutional crisis.”

 By Ghanaian Chronicle