Members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Gomoa Dominase in the Gomoa East District of the Central Region are protesting against the disqualification of Richard Panford, an aspirant who is contesting the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) for Gomoa East, Kojo Asemanyi.
The angry demonstrators on Saturday, June 6, 2020, invoked curses on the incumbent MP and top party hierarchy who have a hand in the disqualification of the aspiring MP.
They say the move is a ploy to make the incumbent MP Kojo Asemanyi go unopposed.
Speaking to Citi News in an interview former Assemblyman for Dominase Electoral area Simon Baah tells Citi News they will not support the incumbent MP in the coming party parliamentary primaries.
“The disqualification is a major worry to us the incumbent ios not ready to help us. The MP told us that if the people of Doninase won’t vote for him, angels will vote for me. So we want the angels to vote for him. So that is why we are demonstrating over the disqualification of our ‘incoming MP’. He was disqualified only yesterday meaning. We invoked the curses because we don’t have the money to follow up on the court case. So anybody who is involved in the disqualification process should be dealt with by the gods. We are never going to support the incumbent MP.”
Disqualification accusations
The upcoming NPP primaries have been characterized by allegations by some constituency executives to make incumbent MPs run unopposed by disqualifying some aspirants.
For instance, 64 candidates were passed in the Eastern region after the vetting. Notable among the candidates who did not pass the vetting process was Gloria Ofori-Boadu who had been disqualified from contesting the Abuakwa South constituency.
In the Offinso South Constituency, aggrieved delegates marched to the Offin river to perform a ritual to resist any attempt by party executives to impose the incumbent MP, Abdallah Bandah on them.
The situation is not different in the Juaben Constituency of the Ashanti Region where delegates have protested the decision of the party executives to disqualify an aspirant, Francis Owusu, from the constituency’s primaries.
The NPP has set Saturday, June 20, 2020, for its suspended presidential and parliamentary primaries.
The election which was supposed to have come off on April 25, 2020, 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.
Many parliamentary aspirants suspended their campaigns due to the decision.
But with the easing of some of the COVID-19 induced restrictions, some aspirants have resumed some level of campaign.