34 cleared for GOC elections

The three-man Electoral Commission of the Ghana Olympic Committee has cleared thirty-four out of the thirty-six applicants who filed their nominations to contest various positions at the GOC.

Whilst Cillian George Walsh from the Ghana Shooting Sports had his nomination rejected on the basis of his nationality, that of Jerry Ahmed Shaib from the Ghana Special Olympics Association is on hold following an error on his nomination form.

Walsh filed to contest the position of Vice President whilst Shaib filed to be part of the three other members on the committee.

A total of 12 positions are available for the March 15, 2017 general election.

Apart from eight people filing to contest for the five slots to represent Olympic Sport and seven others also filing to contest for the three executive member positions, all the others are straight contests between incumbents and challengers, with the most interesting, no doubt, being for the Presidency, where Prof Francis Dodoo, the incumbent and president of the Ghana Athletics Association (GAA), is being challenged by Ben Nunoo Mensah, the president of the Ghana Weightlifting Federation.

According to Mr Ken Ashigbey, the Chairman of the three-man GOC Electoral Commission, all is set for the election with the submission of the list of delegates who qualify to vote as indicated by the sports federations.

Per the list, two delegations from each of the 23 Olympic sports federations, two representing the Athletes Commission and 15 representing the non Olympic Sport and federations affiliated to the GOC will cast their votes to choose the new officers to lead the GOC for the next four years.

Mr Ashigbey explained that the commission will soon come out with other modalities concerning the elections which will be supervised by the National Electoral Commission.

Below is the list of candidates for the elections