Operation save democracy: NDC directs MPs to stay in Parliament

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has directed its Members of Parliament (MPs) to ensure that they attend all parliamentary sittings and not to embark on any travel that will affect their attendance in Parliament.

This directives, the party said, were in solidarity with its Caucus in Parliament to fight against what the party termed as “the obnoxious Constitutional Instrument the Electoral Commission is seeking to lay before Parliament.”

The party has also recalled its MPs who have travelled with immediate effect. 

A statement issued and signed by the General Secretary of the NDC, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, said the party at its Functional Executive Committee (FEC) meeting held in Accra last Tuesday, issued the directive and resolved that the period from the evening of that day to March 31, 2023, has been declared as “Operation Save Our Democracy.”

In line with that, the party in the statement also directed all its parliamentary aspirants in constituencies where the party has sitting MPs to suspend their campaign activities as any breach of the directives shall attract severe sanctions. 

It further asked all the party’s regional and constituency executive to ensure strict compliance with the directives.

It stated that dates for the filing of nominations, vetting of parliamentary aspirants and parliamentary primaries remained unchanged.

The party last month from February 22 to 24, 2023 opened nominations for its presidential and parliamentary primaries.

Acoording to statistics from the NDC’s Elections Directorate indicated that a total of 872 persons picked forms for the party’s parliamentary primaries in 249 constituencies out of the 279 with the highest number of aspirants from the Greater Accra Region of 143 and 105 in the Ashanti region.

Presidential 

Those who picked forms for the presidential primaries were former President John Dramani Mahama; a businessman from the Weija-Gbawe Constituency of the party, Ernest Kwaku Kobeah, former Chief Executive of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Kojo Bonsu and a former Minister of Finance and former Governor of Bank of Ghana, Dr Kwabena Duffuor.

Per the timetable of the elections issued by the party in January, 2023, aspiring presidential and parliamentary candidates are to submit their completed nomination forms between March 20 to 22 before vetting would commence on March 27 to 29. 

There would also be a window for appeals on the outcome of the vetting process between March 30 to April 6 before the election on May 13.

The two elections would be held on the same day on Saturday, May 13, 2023 in all the voting centres in all the 276 constituencies including Santrokofi-Apkafu-Lolobi and Likpe (SALL) in the Oti Region.The NDC headquarters would also constitute a voting centre.

Frozen constituencies 

The party has also put on hold the picking of nomination forms in 27 constituencies with regard to the parliamentary primaries to allow for further engagements with key stakeholders to ensure that the primaries in those areas would lead to outcomes that would favour the party’s performance in those constituencies, according to a statement issued by Mr Kwetey last month.