Anybody who wants to be on the Electoral Commission’s ballot paper as a presidential candidate in the 7 December 2020 polls will have to pay GHS100,000 as filing fee, the election management body has said.

Also, parliamentary aspirants are to pay GHS10,000 as filing fee.

The fees are to be paid by banker’s draft.

They must all file their nominations between Monday, 5 October and Friday, 9 October.

The nomination forms are on the EC’s websites, as part of COVID-19 safety measures.

 “This year’s nominations will be different from previous nominations”, EC Chair Jean Mensa said on Monday, 14 September 2020.

“As you are all aware, we are operating in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As a result, the commission has introduced a number of measures to reduce human contact and human traffic and its activities and operations to a large extent.

“Our commitment to promote and undertake a COVID-19 free election has largely informed and influenced the changes we have made to our activities and the nomination process is not left out,” she noted.

Rules for filing

According to the EC, the General Secretaries of the various parties will be given unique passwords to give to their aspirants with which they can access the forms.

Aspirants running as independent candidates are to have their representatives access the password from the EC’s IT department.

Additionally, the nomination forms will only be received between 9:00 am and 12:00 noon and 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm each day.

The aspirants are also to submit their forms in quadruplicates.

Presidential aspirants are to submit their nomination forms to the Chairperson of the EC, who is the Returning Officer for the presidential poll at the headquarters of the election management body.

The parliamentary aspirants, on the other hand, are to submit the forms to the Returning Officers at the various district offices of the EC within their respective constituencies or have their proposer or seconder do that on their behalf.