The Head of Legal Affairs of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Edudzie Tamekloe, has described the Electoral Commission’s (EC) decision to disqualify the party’s parliamentary candidate for the Amenfi Central as mischievous and disingenuous.
Edudzie Tamekloe told Citi Breakfast Show host, Bernard Avle that the EC’s basis for the “disqualification is mind-boggling” because it was a party to an interlocutory injunction against the candidate, Joana Gyan Cudjoe’s election in the May 12 primary.
“The basis of the disqualification is the purported interlocutory injunction from the High Court in Sekondi which is extremely mischievous because clearly, the EC at all material times, was a party to the suit in the Sekondi Court.
“Each time we appeared before the judge in Sekondi, there was a representative for the EC and so the proceedings were known to the EC. When we annulled that election and decided to rerun it, they came to supervise the election and so for Samuel Tettey to refer to the injunction [in the disqualification] is completely disingenuous.”
An October 10 letter signed by the Deputy Chairman of the EC in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey, informed Gyan Cudjoe of her disqualification, stating that the Commission is bound by the court order, which has neither been stayed nor vacated.
The NDC’s legal head also accused the EC of taking sides in the matter and disqualifying Joana from its volution.
“When the EC opened filing, the party presented Joana as its nominee and thereafter, there was an indication that there was going to be the printing of the notice of poll, which was delayed and so we made enquiries and wrote a letter to the plaintiff and we thought this matter had ended, but on October 10, Samuel Tettey wrote a letter disqualifying Joana.
“The EC cannot act like an octopus and move everywhere looking to disqualify a candidate whose election it supervised.”