Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has assured the members of the party that the calendar of the party which schedules Saturday, May 13 as the day for primaries, remains intact until the outcome of the injunction suit on Friday, May 12.
According to the National Chairman of the NDC, the primaries have not been called off as perceived by many. However, he claimed to have made numerous overtures to all parties involved to have an amicable solution, yet has not succeeded nor yielded any fruitful result.
Johnson Asiedu Nketia stressed in an interview that he would rather the party’s structures were followed by members of the party, instead of a court action.
Dr Kwabena Duffuor, an aspirant amongst three aspirants of the NDC on Tuesday, May 9, filed a suit at a High Court in Accra, following complaints that the album for the exercise was flawed. He petitioned the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC), which has since withdrawn itself from supervising the primaries, until the determination of the injunction application by the court.
Though initially scheduled to be heard on Monday, May 15, the injunction application will be heard on Friday, May 12, after the NDC filed for abridgement of time.
The National Chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, assured the rank and file of the party that all processes will be employed to get aggrieved parties to come to a consensus.
As stated by him, there was nothing untoward done by the leadership of the party for any contender to go to court. However, he deferred to the decision to be taken by the court on Friday.
“The elections have not been called off but after the court decides we will take a decision based on what the court directs…party leadership has done nothing wrong. We have tried as much as possible to abide faithfully by the guidelines we issued to conduct the elections.”
Johnson Asiedu Nketia
For him, all means will be exhausted to ensure that an amicable solution is found to the impasse.
Owusu Bempah Accuses NDC Of Being Trapped In In Same Scheme As EC
Ernest Owusu Bempah, a Deputy Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), critiqued the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the issues that have characterized the conduct of the presidential and parliamentary election, which have resulted in the injunction application filed by a flagbearer aspirant Dr Kwabena Duffuor.
Portions of Dr Duffuor’s application said.“The plaintiff avers that the partial delivery of the Photo Album to his representatives on 4th May 2023 was in itself out of time considering the magnitude of the verification exercise required of them before the internal elections of 13th May 2023.” The Duffuor campaign team earlier demanded postponement of the May 13 Presidential Primaries, over what it described as a flawed register.
Commenting on this issue in a press statement, Owusu Bepah said “In fact, I have never doubted the NDC’s incompetence, and their insistence on not following the rules of engagement regarding their own elections, really jumps at me. It also shows a fundamental disdain for the concept of accountability. If the NDC as a political organisation can do this to themselves in their intra-party elections, do they expect the Electoral Commission(EC) to be fair to them in the run-up to election 2024?”
“Can the NDC accuse the EC of electoral malfeasance and corruptible conduct, when the party is trapped in the same scheme in its own backyard all in an attempt to give Mahama an undue advantage over other candidates? What is the point of intra-party politics and leadership, if they can’t even publicly correct the record when they are wrong?”
Ernest Owusu Bempah
READ ALSO: NDC Primaries: NDC Seeks Court Dismissal Of Dr. Duffuor’s ‘Frivolous And Incompetent’ Suit
