Mrs. Charlotte Osei, the chairperson of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, has shared with the BBC’s Akwasi Sarpong that the Printing of Ballot Papers for the parliamentary elections across the country has already started.
Giving reasons why they are prepared to hold the elections on December 7th, she said “We will not allow lawsuits to subvert the process and so we are going to get a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court likely this week; at the latest, early next week, but in the meantime, we have started the process of printing the parliamentary ballot papers to make up some of the time and so we are in a good place to meet the December 7 date”.
The 15 Political parties excluding independent candidates running for parliament are:
Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP)
Progressive Peoples Party (PPP)
National Democratic Congress (NDC)
United Progressive Party (UPP)
New Patriotic Party (NPP)
National Democratic Party (NDP)
Independent Peoples Party (IPP)
United Front Party (UFP)
All Peoples Congress (APC)
Reform Patriotic Democrats (RPD)
United Development Systems Party (UDSP)
Ghana Freedom Party (GFP)
Convention People Party (CPP)
Peoples National Convention (PNC)
Democratic People Party (DPP)
The presidential balloting is currently on hold due to various courts cases facing the electoral commission after their decision to disqualify 13 presidential candidates over errors in their nomination forms.
The chairperson has not revealed the companies printing the ballot papers, but the Daily Statesman, one of the leading newspapers in the country has revealed Acts Commercial Printing, Buck Press and Innolink, all Ghanaian companies who placed a bid to do the job are currently the companies contracted to print the ballot papers for the upcoming elections.
The newspaper has also alleged the electoral commission “has, against all advice, just this week awarded a $8.95 million contract to print the Statement of Poll and Declaration of Results Forms (Form Eight), commonly known as Pink Sheets, and other results-related carbonized election forms, to a liquidated company” in the United Kingdom.
The allegations which are yet to receive a response from the Electoral Commission state that Aero Votes, the commercial printing company contracted, went insolvent three years ago. They believed the contract was given to the company because their Ghanaian directors Kofi Burah Asomaning, Tyrese Nii Dodoo and John Tetteh Akwerh are sympathizers of the ruling party.
