DARK CLOUDS continue to hang over the Asante Akim Central (AAC) Constituency of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
It follows the inability of the leadership of the party at the constituency, regional and higher levels to see to the successful resolution of issues there in spite of series of petitions and appeals.
At a press conference yesterday, Richard Gyekye, spokesman for the group of disgruntled former Polling Station Executives, flanked by his colleague affected members of the party including Patrick Frimpong, Samuel Ofori Amanfo and Dickson Awuku, who said they were among many others denied the opportunity to contest the immediate past polling station elections, gave extensive detail about a deliberate attempt by the incumbent Member of Parliament of the area, Kwame Anyimadu-Antwi and the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Robert Kwakye to foist themselves on the constituency by employing various schemes to deny an open, free and fair contest in the Asante Akim Central NPP.
Issues
“In the run up to the presidential and parliamentary elections in December 2020, we were sidelined from all their activities though this did not discourage us from engaging in door-to-door and street campaigns where we have videos and pictures to prove.
“It was not surprising that again, on the very day for the presidential and parliamentary elections in December 2020, we were prevented from mobilising voters and guarding the ballots,” he narrated.
It was in the wake of these developments that Gyekye alleged led to the party’s shoddy campaign in the constituency, which led to an independent candidate obtaining over 12,000 votes in the NPP stronghold constituency.
As if these manipulations were not enough, he indicated that, the constituency executives, later in 2021 issued dismissal letters to about 70 Polling Station Executives with the claim that they voted for an independent candidate.
“One would have expected that they would give recourse to the principle of natural justice by giving them fair hearing but again, this was deliberately ignored. How they arrived at the conclusion that they voted for an independent candidate was questionable, considering the fact that voting is done in secret,” he noted.
Sometime in February 2022, the party’s national executive council issued guidelines for the conduct of internal elections across all constituencies which stated when party offices were supposed to be opened for picking of nomination forms by incumbent officers and prospective aspirants.
However, the aggrieved former party executives said “in Asante Akim Central, the elections committee headed by the MCE clandestinely shared the forms to people in their cabals,” and that “incumbent Polling Station Executives, including some of us who had served the party several years, were denied the opportunity to pick forms and eliminated from the album compilation process.”
Interestingly, he said “when we sought explanations from the committee, the shocking response they gave was that politics is about interests and a ‘normal’ game of mafia, and that they are pursuing their interests though one would have thought that as MP, MCE and constituency executives, the interest of the great elephant fraternity would be prioritised by allowing our supporters to elect people they believe can work harder to help the party win the next elections and break the eight-year cycle as touted by the party.”
Resolve
He, therefore, noted that “we have also decided not to allow that to happen today, tomorrow and the day afterwards.”
He indicated that they have submitted several petitions for the AAC polling station elections to be conducted properly, including those sent to the then General Secretary asking for the dissolution of the Elections Committee and for the elections to be conducted after reconstitution of the Committee since the Committee headed by the MCE, who is an ally of the MP, refused to conduct elections and only handpicked the MP’s favourites as Polling Station and Electoral Area Executives.
Following the formation of the Alternative Dispute Resolution and Legal Support Committee, he said the petitioners again re-petitioned the Committee but did not get a response from the Committee.
Meanwhile, he alleged that the petitioners were denied forms by the Elections Committee during the opening of nominations, and they had to pick forms from the National Office of the party.
According to him, the Elections Committee never communicated the outcome of the vetting exercise to the prospective aspirants, only to later hear a register had been compiled by the Committee, describing that election as illegal, whilst insisting that “the Register from it cannot be used by the Party since it has already led to serious cracks and divisions in the Party, and it will negatively affect our Parliamentary and Presidential fortunes in the next elections.”
He has since asked the leadership of the party to commission an investigation or research in the constituency to determine the veracity of this.
That, he said, was because “for many of the petitioners, we have served as Polling Station Executives since the 1990s and it will be most unfair for the party to continue to treat us this way.”
They have, therefore, appealed to the National Executives to re-constitute an Elections Committee for a proper Polling Station and Electoral Area elections to be conducted.