Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, the Director of Elections of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has advised aspirants who have attributed their defeat to alleged instances of vote-buying in the just ended parliamentary primaries organised by the party to back their claims with facts to have their concerns resolved.
“This is because statistics available to the party shows the election recorded 98 per cent success rate hence rumours of irregularities and rigging are untrue and I urge aspirants who are aggrieved by outcome of polls to officially lodge complaint with party and prove beyond reasonable doubts election processes were skewed to favour their opponents.
“There were issues contestants complained because they lost but they have not made complaints to us, as a party, we don’t work based on rumours, we have heard them but it is only proper formal reports will be presented to the party with evidence.
“If there are any investigations, we carry it from there, what I find curious and interesting is, all those contestants in the race were confident were going to win until they lost, whatever claims they have, they should bring it to the fore.
“Although the monetisation of politics is gradually becoming a hard bone to break, the reckless peddling of misinformation on vote-buying is likely to tarnish the reputation of the party and that of the election it fairly organised.
“So far we haven’t received any specific complaints, in terms of money but I think the issue of money in politics is something that has to be looked at in a broad context, my difficulty is that if we’re not careful with the way the conversation is being packaged, subconsciously it’ll make it appear the entire NDC election was characterised by money.
“If we don’t put things in their proper perspective, we’ll turn out misinforming the public, if you look at the figures, it was 98 per cent successful, we can’t say this election was fraught with money issues, it is not a correct assessment of the election,” Mr Ankrah cautioned.
Relatedly, The Functional Executive Committee (FEC) of the party has
cleared four constituencies to elect their parliamentary candidates for the
2020 elections which are Assin South, Mfantseman, Fanteakwa North and
Ellembelle will come off on Saturday, August 31.
After next Saturday’s exercise, 74 constituencies will be left to elect their 2020 parliamentary candidates. -citinewsroom.com
