Dr Akoto team confident in party elections committee

The campaign team of Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, one of the flag bearer hopefuls of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has reposed its trust and confidence in the election committee of the party.

"We believe in the election committee and we believe in the one that will be elected.

We all know that the real choice is there.

"What we saw on August 26 was to satisfy some people's ego, but the real one will happen on November 4," the National Campaign Coordinator of the team, Peter Oteng Darko, told the Daily Graphic in an interview in Accra last weekend.

Fantastic job

Mr Darko commended the party elections committee, the Electoral Commission (EC) and security personnel for "a fantastic job.

"The election committee did a fantastic job. Per the regulations that they put across for this election, ideally, we should have had the best election so far.

"All the regulations were followed to the letter," Mr Darko told the Daily Graphic.

Marred election

He, however, alleged that the beauty of the election was marred in some of the regions with coercion, intimidation and influence of officialdom.

"You could see that people were coerced and forced to vote in a certain pattern.

"So, there were some levels of force in the whole process," Mr Darko alleged, adding, for instance, that the heavy presence of government officials in the voting centre in the Ashanti Region made it difficult for people to vote with their conscience.

Speaking in support of the complaints by one of the candidates, Alan Kyerematen, Mr Darko said in all the three regions of the former Northern Region, the election rules were flouted, with delegates displaying their votes to the regional chairman before putting them in the ballot boxes.

Real deal

He, however, believed that the August 26 election was for the party to reduce the aspirants to five in consonance with the party's election rules.

"For us, the important thing is that we are part of the five and the real deal will be on November 4, when we will be dealing with about 210,000 delegates, a number nobody can manipulate," Mr Darko said.

He expressed worry that what went happened on August 26 was a potential danger for the party, stressing," what we saw was not the true will of the people.

"We lost it when the National Council of the party decided that the election should be held in the various regions," he said.

Mr Darko explained that in the national election, close to 5,000 delegates voted and that was even held in one voting centre in Accra, "but this election of a little over 900 delegates, we had to vote at the regional level.

"So, that made it difficult for people to do their will as against the forces that be and the fact was that people's votes were being inspected before they put it in the ballot box," he added.