Confusion at NPP Manhyia North
The much-awaited election to choose polling station executive members for the Manhyia North Constituency of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) came off last Friday amidst much confusion.
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Less than 24 hours to the elections, the Chairman of the Election Committee, Mr Maxwell Kofi Jumah, resigned, accusing the Regional Chairman, Mr Bernard Antwi Boasiako, and the Deputy Regional Organiser, Mr Daniel Boateng, of impeding the process.
Mr Jumah claimed that although the committee was in charge of the polling station election, the two were pulling strings behind the scenes and preventing the election from being free and fair.
Snatching of materials
The election itself was characterised by a few incidents. For instance, at the Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Polling Station, an unidentified man snatched the electoral materials from the electoral officer and run away with them.
Besides that, electoral materials arrived late at most of the polling stations.
Election
That notwithstanding, Mr Boateng, who assumed the chairmanship of the election committee, told the Daily Graphic that the process was successful.
He, however, admitted that there were some challenges at some of the polling stations so voting at those stations had been rescheduled for yesterday.
“If out of 104 polling stations we have only 10 that could not hold theirs, I think this is more than 80 per cent achievement,” he said.
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Protest
The Constituency Secretary, Mr Felix Ibrahim, however, thought otherwise. He said the process was full of irregularities so the constituency would not accept the results.
He said, “the whole process was fraught with problems and there is no way we are going to accept the results from this election. We will protest it. The election must be rerun.”
Background
Manhyia North is yet to elect its parliamentary candidate due to a misunderstanding over the polling station executives.
The constituency parliamentary primary has been called off more than three times.
One Nana Osei Bamfo is challenging the incumbent Member of Parliament, Collins Owusu Amankwah.
There is a seeming tension between the regional chairman and the incumbent MP, which has resulted in bad blood and mistrust.