There appears to be some level of disorderliness and blatant disregard for party guidelines on the election of parliamentary candidates as 28 out of 29 Berekum West constituency executives of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) have openly declared their support for one of the parliamentary aspirants, Dickson Kyere-Duah, popularly called Stuttgart.
The declaration was done on last Friday at Jinijini at an emergency meeting hurriedly organised shortly after the Regional Chairman of the party, Mr. Kwadwo Nyamekye Marfo and some other regional executives had taken the pains to explain the guidelines to the constituency executives and had left.
This illegal action of the Executives has generated a serious apprehension among the rank and file of the party in the constituency, which has been in the safe hands of the NPP for years.
The action by the 28 executives violates paragraph 13.1 of the party’s guidelines which states that: “No organ, institution, branch or structure of the party shall issue any public or press statements in support of any of the contestants. For the avoidance of doubt, no party executive member (national, regional and constituency) or any member of any organ of the party shall issue any public statements or make any public pronouncements which have the effect of committing the support of the whole of that organ, institution, branch or structure of the party to any contestant.”
The guidelines further add: “Any person who violates or breaches any part of these guidelines shall be subject to sanctions by NEC upon recommendations of the Disciplinary Committee.”
A source at the Berekum West Constituency office of the NDC told our reporter that last Monday, the Constituency Chairman, Mr. James Ntim, confirmed their action on Adinkanfo FM, a local radio station in the area.
“When we met and asked all the 29 constituency Executives whether or not any of them was against the Council of Elders advice to allow Kwabena Kyere Stuttgart to go unopposed, only one Executive disagreed. The rest of the Executives voted in favour of the motion”, Chairman James Ntim was heard saying on the local radio station.
He claimed that some aspirants have their own agenda which tend to create divisions in the party after primaries hence the decision not to allow for any elections at all to curtail any possible divisions.
Prior to this, he had invited the three NDC parliamentary aspirants namely; Dickson Kyere-Duah, Lawyer Barima-Agyekum Hinneh and Martin Lucas and impressed it upon Lawyer Hinneh and Mr. Lucas to agree to the constituency executives’ proposal but he was turned down.
Not even the kneeling down by some of the constituency executives, including the vice-chairman, could convince Lawyer Barima-Agyekum Hinneh and Martin Lucas to back down and allow Stuttgart to go unopposed.
Some die-hard supporters of the party, who spoke to our reporter on conditions of anonymity decried the action of the constituency executives and said this could create divisions and adversely affect the party’s chances in the next general elections.
“Considering the party’s performance in the last couple of parliamentary elections in the constituency, we stand a better chance of annexing the seat from the NPP if we create a level-playing filed for aspirants and stay united after the primaries, which is just about two months away”, one said.
