‘Do not use primaries to blackmail aspirants’

The Afigya Kwabre South Constituency Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, has cautioned supporters of the party not to use the upcoming parliamentary primaries and the 2020 general election to blackmail aspiring parliamentarians.

He stated that if any member or members had any issue with any aspirant, there was the need for it to be resolved so they would not use the primaries as a bargaining chip to force the aspirant to engage in vote buying.

Mr Appiah explained that party members “blackmailing politicians” was a common phenomenon among various political parties and it did not lead to fairness in the election of the right candidate for either the parliamentary primaries or any other election.

Workshop

The constituency chairman announced this at a one-day training workshop dubbed: “A time with constituency organisers” in Kodie, the capital of the Afigya Kwabre South District in the Ashanti Region.

The workshop, which had the theme “Election 2020, the role of the polling station organiser”, was attended by constituency organisers and other members of the party to share ideas, strategies to use and plan towards Election 2020.

“Let our politicians use their own initiatives to do things which will go a long way to help the entire populace and not to force them to engage in vote buying,” he stated.

The constituency chairman reminded delegates who cast their votes during internal party elections to think about the development of the party and the nation as a whole and not what they (the delegates) would gain for voting.

Constituency development

Mr Appiah commended the Member of Parliament for the Afigya Kwabre South Constituency, Mr William Owuraku Aidoo, and the District Chief Executive for Afigya Kwabre South, Mr Christian Adu-Poku, for their support towards the development of the constituency.

He appealed to all stakeholders in the district to continue working as a team so they would be able to promote the development of the area and the nation as a whole.

Mr Aidoo was full of praise for the people for voting him into office.

He pledged to continue working very hard to ensure that the people of the area received their due share of the national cake.

Party functionaries

The MP, who is also the Deputy Minister of Energy, reminded the party functionaries not to undermine the National Democratic Congress as they prepared to contest the upcoming general election in 2020 and rather double their efforts so they could win the election convincingly.

Mr Adu-Poku enumerated the various development projects the assembly was putting in place, giving an assurance that the assembly would continue to put in place the right initiatives and projects that stood the chance of propelling the development of the area to improve the standard of living of the people.

Mr Adu-Poku reminded the organisers to open up not to only members of the NPP but to all other parties as they embarked on their regular house-to-house, faith-based organisations and other places to campaign.

He urged the organisers to not only be interested in the appointments as organisers but rather think about working very hard to merit the positions assigned them.