Some New Patriotic Party (NPP) delegates in the Juaben Constituency of the Ashanti Region are protesting the decision of the party executives to disqualify an aspirant, Francis Owusu, from the constituency’s primaries.
The delegates have threatened not to campaign for the party in the upcoming 2020 general elections if the decision is not reversed.
Some constituency executives feel the disqualification is a ploy to allow the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Ama Pomaa Boateng, run unopposed.
“For now, we don’t the reason for the dismissal. But all the delegates in the constituency are not in support of the decision to disqualify the aspirant. This is a situation we don’t want to happen, but we are urging the arty executives to meet our demands so the party will have peace in this constituency. From the President to the Region, we are urging all our executives to do what will make us happy. We will not rest until the decision is reconsidered,” one executive said.
“The disqualified aspirant is who we want. We believe in him because although he is not a sitting MP, he has done enough for us. He has constructed roads and constructed a police post for us to address the robbery cases here. So we are appealing to the President and the party executives to reinstate the aspirant so we can retain the seat because the incumbent MP has failed us,” another said.
Offinso
Meanwhile, tension is brewing in the Offinso South Constituency also in the Ashanti Region, where some party’s supporters have vowed to resist any attempt by party executives to impose a candidate on them.
The aggrieved persons who marched through the streets of Offinso to the river Offin to perform a ritual called on the party leadership to allow all three aspirants to contest in order to ensure peace in the constituency.
The NPP will be conducting its parliamentary primaries on June 20, 2020.
The election was supposed to have come off on April 25, 2020, but was postponed indefinitely due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country and the related restrictive measures announced by the President.
At a Steering Committee meeting held on Monday [June 1, 2020], the party agreed to hold the election in electoral areas rather than at the constituency level in order to ensure social distancing.
NPP was to use the primaries to elect parliamentary candidates in constituencies where it has sitting Members of Parliament, ahead of the 2020 general elections.
