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Jean Mensah, Electoral Commission Chairperson
Why does this Jean Mensah-led Electoral Commission (EC) like courting scandalous reviews on itself? Why do they like perpetuating pre-emptive crude tactics against the main opposition NDC in particular too?
Example: How did Jean Mensah and her team convince themselves that the disqualification of Joana Gyan as Amenfi Central parliamentary candidate of the NDC made sense given the prevailing facts?
THE FACTS
The PC won the right to first represent the NDC last year (2023) only for a restraining order or Injunction to be placed on her from holding herself as the duly-elected PC until the final determination of a matter brought before the court in May 2024 thereabout.
That order compelled the NDC to cancel the election that won her victory and subsequently hold fresh elections in replacement of the disputed poll, which she again won. Her second victory was in an election supervised by the district office of the same Jean Mensah-led EC.
The previous victory on which the injunction was granted was thus not the basis of her qualification as a PC or application to the EC to run for the Amenfi Central Constituency in the national elections slated for December 7, 2024.
The 2023 election and related matters arising out of it, such as the May 2024 Injunction, have also long ceased to matter.
A RUSHED, RECKLESS DECISION
What is even worse are the emerging details that clearly shows something funny about the EC disqualification, aside the stated facts above. The evidence suggests clearly that the decision to disqualify her was reckless, and rushed at best.
Note the following. The EC’s disqualification notice to Joana Gyan Cudjoe through Samuel Tettey, its Deputy Chairman, Operations, is dated 10th October, 2024. That is, the letter was written to Joana Gyan informing her of her disqualification based on the moot May 2024 case and injunction just last week Thursday, 10th October.
Yet, records from the same EC in a search letter it wrote to the Sekondi High Court today, 16th October, 2024 suggests clearly that the EC’s decision was taken in haste, without certainty. In other words, the EC took a decision and made an announcement on the disqualification despite not having the full facts itself.
Today’s letter, signed by the same Samuel Tettey (attached) six days after the EC disqualified Joana Gyan Cudjoe, is now seeking to find out from the Sekondi High Court Registry whether the same person it disqualified in a letter dated six (6) days ago has a valid injunction against her candidature as a parliamentary candidate?
Issues are:
- How did the EC disqualify someone on an injunction it wasn’t sure existed?
- If the EC and Samuel Tettey wanted to conduct a search at the Sekondi Court on the Injunction Application on the 16th day of September to inform a genuine decision on the PC, why did it disqualify the same person six days prior to the search that needed to inform its decision?
- Given that the EC itself was unsure of the existence of an injunction against the PC according to their own per search queries dated today, what was its basis for the prior disqualification of her on the 10th day of October?
- Why do these officers keep committing basic, baseless blunders which open the credibility of the EC to serious attacks?
This also leaves me wondering. Is it that Samuel Tettey, the same man who indirectly claimed responsibility for having frogs, trees, etc on the 2016 Electoral Register is simply clueless at his task, or was he set up for a fall on this ridiculous decision that will be overturned soon?
Time will tell…