GHANA DISQUALIFIES EX-FIRST LADY, 12 OTHERS FROM RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT

BY CONOR GAFFEY*

Former Ghanaian First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (L) is pictured with her husband, ex-president Jerry Rawlings, at a ceremony in Takoradi, western Ghana on December 15, 2010. Agyeman-Rawlings has been disqualified, along with 12 others, from running in December’s presidential elections.
PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Ghana’s electoral commission has disqualified 13 candidates, including a former first lady, from running in the West African country’s presidential elections in December.

Candidates were disqualified for multiple reasons, including suspected forged signatures and incomplete or incorrect submission forms, the country’s electoral commission said on Monday. The exclusions mean that just four candidates—including incumbent President John Mahama and main opposition party leader Nana Akufo-Addo—in the running for the presidency.

The disqualified candidates include Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the wife of Jerry John Rawlings, who twice took control of Ghana in military coups and served as a democratically-elected president between 1993 and 2001. Also barred was Papa Kwesi Nduom, a popular Ghanaian businessman who has twice contested presidential elections in the country.

Several candidates have vowed to contest their disqualification. Agyewman-Rawlings’s National Democratic Party said it was “disgusted” at the commission’s decision and called on Ghanaians to “rise up to stop our nation from falling into governance roguery and repression.” Nduom also indicated in a tweet that he would not give up his candidacy

*Newsweek