2020 Elections: Presidential and parliamentary aspirants to file nomination from Oct 5 to 9

Presidential and parliamentary aspirants for the December 7, 2020 Elections in Ghana are to file their nomination from October 5th to 9th, 2020, the Electoral Commission (EC) has announced.

The Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa made this known at a press briefing Monday evening, [September 14, 2020].

The nomination fee for presidential aspirants is a deposit of GH¢100,000. This is a 100 percent increase from the GH¢50,000 fee which was paid in 2016.

That of parliamentary aspirants, is a deposit GH¢10,000, same as what was paid in 2016.

Per the regulations of the EC, the filing fee or nomination fee that the aspirant pays is refunded after the election if he or she gets a certain percentage of the total valid votes cast in the election.

The percentage is 25 per cent in the case of the Presidential election and 12.5 in the case of the parliamentary election.

However, if the aspirant is disqualified after filing the nomination, the aspirant does not get any refund.

Unlike in the past where aspirants picked up the nomination forms from the office of the EC, this year the forms have been uploaded on the website of the EC.

Aspirants are therefore to download their forms from the EC website and submit it as part of measures to help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

In the past, the EC used just two days for the filing of nominations but this year, it has been increased it to five days.

The Chairperson of the EC explained that to "ensure the security and integrity of the nomination process, each political party will be provided with a unique password to enable them access the password protected nomination forms...the passwords will be provided to the general secretaries of the political partieis."

"It is important to note that independent candidates will also be issued with unique passwords. We entreat the general secretaries of political parties and representatives of independent candidates to kindly call and contact the Head of IT [at the EC] for to receive access to their passwords."

Read also: PPP: GH¢100,000 presidential nomination filing fee is too much

Guidelines for filling nomination forms

The EC has provided a detailed guideline on its website for filling the nomination forms.

The EC will receive the filled out nomination forms for the presidential and parliamentary aspirants from Monday October 5 to Friday October 9, 2020.

The forms are to be submitted in quadruplicates.

That of the presidential aspirants are to submitted at the EC head office by the aspirants themselves or their supporters and to be received by the EC chairperson who is the Returning Officer.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the EC has limited the number of persons to submit the forms at the head office or at the district office to five persons. 

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Writer's email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh 

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