Candidate dies after disqualification to contest in Ghana’s district assembly election.

A 75-year-old candidate barred by Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) by virtue of his age to contest the just ended District Level Elections has reportedly died out of shock.

Edward York, desirous of retaining his seat, had invested his ex-gratia of 2,500 Ghana Cedis or 675.7 US dollars he received at the end of the last assembly session into his campaign to print posters and T-shirts only to be disqualified at the last minute by a new Constitutional Instrument CI 89.

The CI 89 stipulates that a candidate who has attained the age of 70 and above cannot contest the assembly election.

York had filed his nomination to contest the District Assembly Election at the Adra Electoral Area in Takoradi in the Western Region could not stand the impact of the new legal instrument regulating the conduct of the election and died shortly afterwards.

Some candidates told local media the sudden death of their colleague, who was the immediate past Assemblyman for the Adra Electoral area, Sekondi-Takoradi, some 227 km east of the national capital, occurred “out of shock”.

One Assembly member told local daily, The Ghanaian Chronicle: “Anytime he meets me, he complains that he had used his ex-gratia to campaign only for the EC to disqualify him from the race.”

Yorke, who expressed worry over the development, had allegedly said he was considering dragging the EC to court over his disqualification but died before he could do so. Enditem

Source: Xinhua