Dan Lartey wants EC in court

aving failed to successfully filed his nomination forms to contest the December elections, Mr. Dan Lartey, flag-bearer of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), is nursing a plan to drag Ghana's electoral body to court for "deliberately" refusing his nomination.

He told Joy News he hoped the Electoral Commission (EC) would be compelled by the court to rescind the decision to disqualify him from contesting for the presidential position.

"I spoke to Dr. Afari Gyan and he said if the court instructs him he will comply; so in other words he was leading me to the court ; if there is a procedure to go through in which he will comply, then why not?"

Mr. Lartey was disqualified along with two other presidential candidates – Prophet Daniel Nkansah of the New Vision Party and Richard Nixon Tetteh, an independent candidate, - for presenting incomplete nomination forms

He accused the EC for "deliberately saying there was a mistake in the form" he presented on Friday 17, 2008, the final day for submission of nomination forms.

He told Joy News's Sammy Darko in an interview that since the EC has refused to take a second look at his case, he has no option than to go to court.

Asked if it is not too late since balloting has been done, he shot back, murmuring, "it doesn't matter if they have balloted…if I am put at zero or whatever it is, and I am on the line for election that is alright".

Just for emphasis, a question was reposed if he really meant business, Mr. Lartey reiterated, "If it is the process to be able to settle the matter why not?"

However, he could not readily tell when exactly he is going to initiate the court action.

Until death, Mr. Lartey at age 82, has no dream of retiring from politics. "A human being who is alive and not dead, how can he retire from politics? Until the bones are rotten," die-hard Uncle Dan said.

He said Ghana has a lot of problems in the country and he is the only person with the "methods and way" to solve them.

Meanwhile, Ms. Anna Bossman, the Commissioner at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), has said Mr. Dan Lartey has no case going to court.

"I doubt it, I am not sure what his contention is, I don't see what his problem is," she told the Accra Daily Mail.