Politics of Sunday, 27 February 2022
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2022-02-27New Juaben South NPP members secure injunction against polling station elections
The ruling NPP has commenced its internal elections from the constituency level
NPP begins internal elections
New Juaben South NPP members want national executives to take over elections
New Juaben South NPP Chairman and Secretary accused of hoarding nomination forms
Four members of the New Patriotic Party in the New Juaben South Constituency have secured a court injunction to stop the party’s upcoming polling station and area coordinators elections.
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According to Jalil Ibn Tahir, Amoh Jonas, Ako George and Mable Asantewaa Aikins, there has been a deliberate attempt by executives of the party within the constituency to deny aspirants nomination forms.
The plaintiffs, in a report by Citi News sighted by GhanaWeb, allude that the constituency executives are rather selling the nomination forms to their preferred aspirants while denying others.
“All efforts to buy copies of the nomination forms have proved futile…The plaintiffs say the defendants are secretly and or clandestinely selling nomination forms to their favourites, depriving other prospective candidates attempts to contest for their respective positions in their various polling stations,” they mentioned in their statement of claim.
The Constituency Chairman, Prince Benjamin Aboagye and the Secretary, Alhaji Abubakar Alhassan have both been singled out by the plaintiffs as failing to open nominations on the expected date of February 19, 2022.
The four accused the constituency chairman and their secretary of failing to communicate the venue for picking the nomination forms as was mandated of them.
Despite petitioning the party’s election committee, the plaintiffs say no attention was paid to their grievances.
Demanding the cancelation of the entire electioneering process due to what they described as irregularities, the plaintiffs have asked for “an order of the court directed at the defendants who are in charge/custody of the nomination forms for the polling station and electoral area coordinators election to make same available to all eligible prospective candidates in the upcoming polling station and electoral area coordinators elections New Juaben Constituency.”
They are also demanding that national executives of the party take charge of the sale of nomination forms as well as an order that “no prospective aspirant shall be denied access to the purchase of application forms.”
The search for a successor of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as flagbearer of the ruling NPP is growing contentious by the day.
With several bigwigs within the ruling party tipped to contest the position, there has been various reports of antagonism within the party either aimed at thwarting an interest or pushing the agenda of a potential candidate.
The practice is also rife at the various constituencies ahead of the party's parliamentary primaries.
Some critics however point that the internal wrangling in the NPP can potentially derail the NPP’s dream of holding onto power beyond 2024.
