Following the successful conduct of the Filing of Nominations from the 9th of September to the 13th of September, 2024, the Commission instituted a thorough examination of the Nomination Forms submitted by the Candidates to ensure conformity with requirements as set out in the law,” the press release announced.
“The Electoral Commission wishes to inform the General Public that the following persons have successfully gone through the Nomination process and qualify to contest as Candidates in the 2024 Presidential Election,” it concluded.
Ghana’s electoral commission on Friday published a list of 13 candidates approved to run in the presidential election, which analysts say will be a two-man race between Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia and former president John Dramani Mahama.
Voters in the West African gold and cocoa-producing nation head to the polls on Dec. 7 to elect a successor to President Nana Akufo-Addo, who will step down in January after serving the constitutionally mandated eight years.
Former president Mahama represents the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party and Bawumia, a 60-year-old economist and former central banker, was picked by Akufo-Addo’s ruling New Patriotic Party as its candidate.
The commission said it had also accepted the candidacies of Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen, a former trade and industry minister who resigned from the ruling party to stand as an independent, Nana Kwame Bediako, a businessman competing for the first time for the top job, and Nana Akosua Frimpomaa, one of two women in the race.
Mussa Dankwah from Accra-based research group Global InfoAnalytics said the list of qualified candidates was the longest in Ghana’s history.
“It just opens up the space but in practice, the votes are going to be among four candidates: Bawumia, Mahama, Kyerematen, and Bediako. The rest, I don’t expect them to get more than one percent,” Dankwah told Reuters.
Some candidates from northern Ghana, including Bernard Mornah from an opposition party and Janet Nablah, an independent candidate, did not appear on the list.
Bright Simons, an analyst at Accra-based think tank IMANI, said posited that this means Bawumia’s and Mahama’s parties would be battling for “the soul of the North”.
On Tuesday, Mahama’s NDC party held nationwide protests saying the electoral commission had illegally transferred voters to different voting stations without their knowledge.
The electoral commission said it would review a petition submitted by the party at the end of the demonstrations and provide a response in the coming days. It has previously said identified errors have been corrected.
The allegations add to growing public distrust in the electoral authority.
A July survey by the pan-African research group Afrobarometer showed trust in Ghana’s electoral commission at a historic low since confidence polls started in 1999.
There are nine candidates contesting on the ticket of political parties and four independent candidates in the race.
Notable among the 11 aspirants who have been disqualified are the People’s National Convention’s (PNC), Bernard Mornah, Janet Nabla, an independent aspirant, and Kofi Asamoah Siaw of the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP).
When the window for filing of nominations closed on Friday, September 13, 2024, 12 presidential aspirants standing on the ticket of political parties and 12 others who were standing as independent entities had filed their nominations with the Electoral Commission (EC) to contest the presidential slot in the December 7 general election.
Per the statement from the Electoral Commission, “The Electoral Commission wishes to inform the General Public that the following persons have successfully gone through the Nomination process and qualify to contest as Candidates in the 2024 Presidential Election:
CANDIDATE – PARTY/ENTITY
1. Mahamudu Bawumia – New Patriotic Party (NPP)
2. John Dramani Mahama – National Democratic Congress (NDC)
3. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen – Independent Candidate
4. Christian Kwabena Andrews – Ghana Union Movement (GUM)
5. Daniel Augustus Lartey Jnr – Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP)
6. George Twum-Barima-Adu – Independent Candidate
7. Nana Kwame Bediako – Independent Candidate
8. Akua Donkor – Ghana Freedom Party (GFP)
9. Hassan Abdulai Ayariga – All People’s Congress (APC)
10. Kofi Akpaloo – Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG)
11. Mohammed Frimpong – National Democratic Party (NDP)
12. Nana Akosua Frimpomaa – Convention People’s Party (CPP)
13. Kofi Koranteng – Independent Candidate
Disqualified aspirants
A total of 24 presidential aspirants submitted their nomination forms to the EC. From this list, 11 of them have been disqualified. And they are:
- Janet Asana Nabla, an independent aspirant,
- Bernard Mornah of the People’s National Convention (PNC);
- Kofi Asamoah Siaw of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP),
- Samuel Apea-Danquah;
- Desmond Abrefah;
- Nana Stephens Adjepong;
- Paul Perkoh;
- James Kwesi Oppong;
- John Enyonam Kwakwu Kpikpi;
- Dr Samuel Sampong Ankrah
- Nii Amu Darko.
Although 39 people picked up passcodes to enable them to fill and file the presidential nomination forms, 24 submitted the completed forms as of the close of business on Friday, Sept 13, 2024.
