Assembly members to drag EC to court over local level poll

A group of angry Assembly members have hinted at dragging the Electoral Commission (EC) to the Supreme Court to challenge its decision to conduct the upcoming local level poll on November 26, 2019 instead of September 2019.

According to the aggrieved members of the group, the EC will be committing illegality if it holds the poll in November.

They explained that the tenure of the current assemblies is set to expire on the midnight of October 4 to pave the way for new Assembly members to be inaugurated the following day, October 5, 2019.

“Holding the polls in November will, thus, be two months late, a situation that will leave a vacuum, we are of the view that the decision must review its date so as not to force the assemblies to shut down,” the group asserted.

The group’s convener, Dr Richard Fiadomor, who is a former Presiding Member of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly, posited that, “We are currently doing some consultations and talking to some lawyers, if it gets to the stage where we have to invoke the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, we will do that,” and asked the EC “not sleep on the job”.

The Electoral Commission (EC) has released a timetable for the upcoming assembly elections, per the timetable available, the elections are scheduled to take place nationwide on November 26, 2019.

Activities for the elections are to commence on May 24 to June 2019, a period within which there will be the registration of new voters, from September 22 to 26, there will be the transfer of votes, according to the timetable.

Nomination for Assembly member election is scheduled for August 25 to 30, while from October 7 to 8, the EC is expected to receive nomination form for Assembly members.

According to the timetable, from October 9 to 10, the commission is to receive unit committee nomination forms and from November 21 to 25, it will hold an open forum dialogue with candidates at district levels.

-classfmonline.com