By Agbaxode Emmanuel
Dzodze (VR), May 18, GNA – Mr John Kwabla Adanu, a National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary primaries aspirant for Ketu North in the just-ended elections, has urged leadership of the party to look at the party’s constitution and future guidelines for elections.
“I wish to appeal to the leadership of the party to look at our constitution and future guidelines for elections. The common man or woman in the NDC must feel relevant irrespective of the position and affiliation in the party.”
Mr Adanu in a press statement on Wednesday, May 17 at Dzodze, accepted the verdict of NEC to declare Edem Agbana as winner of Saturday’s primaries, but expressed some worrying factors regarding their decision to declare Mr Agbana as the winner of the primaries after the Electoral Commission brought the results to a tie which initially led to calls for a run-off.
He said the decision by NEC should not go a long way to hunt the party in the future, adding, “this precedent will be corrected no matter how long it takes.
“The eventual declaration of the results by the constitutionally mandated institution responsible for supervising elections in Ghana, announced that due to a tie of 358 votes each between me and Edem Agbana, there should be a re-run of the election.”
However, as we all may have heard now, the National Executive Committee declared Edem Agbana as the duly elected Parliamentary Candidate for the Ketu North Constituency contrary to the declaration of the electoral commission on the day of the election.
“This means, as far as our internal elections are concerned, stamping of ballot papers is irrelevant, given no over voting and the correspondence of serial numbers to the booklets. We can vote using unstamped ballots and hope that there is no over voting to make elections credible? If these ballots were removed during sorting, will we be here? Can our members accept this if it occurs to us in the national elections?” he queried.
Nevertheless, Mr Adanu promised to remain committed and loyal to the party for the needed Victory in 2024.
“The task ahead is enormous, and it will request all hands-on deck, from the very top of the party to the common member to retain the Ketu North seat for the NDC,” he added.
On May 13, Mr Adanu lost the NDC primaries to Edem Agbana by a single vote in the Ketu North race which some seven candidates who contested.
The results, upon a second recount, revealed two unstamped ballots were noticed from Mr Agbana’s votes and one from Mr Adanu’s votes, leading to a tie.
The development, after the leadership of the party has met both parties, declared Mr Agbana as the legitimate winner after deliberations.
This, however, led to agitations among some supporters of the party in the area.
The leadership of the party has since called for a ceasefire.
GNA