The leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has given indications that the scheduled Parliamentary primaries slated for June 13 will take place despite the party’s internal squabbles.
The NPP’s Director of Communications, Nana Akomea told Citi News, the notice of poll for the elections will be published on Wednesday.
[contextly_sidebar id=”d1g6nORg2kMIRi0604ibXypcPLGNWTWi”]“The plan to do the Parliamentary primaries is still there. There has been no change to it. The processes that we have to go through have been done and I think tomorrow or so, the notice of the poll will be published,” he said.
The leadership of the NPP are presently working to calm rising tensions within the rank and file of the party following the murder of its Upper East Regional chairman, Adam Mahama.
The regional branches of the party have began processes aimed at forcing the National Chairman, Paul Afoko and the General Secretary, Kwabena Agyepong to step aside.
Presently, six regions have voted to remove the two national executives through a petition to the National Council.
The regional executives say the party has known no peace since Afoko, Agyepong since they were voted to lead the party last year.
An altercation between the two executives and Adam Mahama, a week before the latter’s murder has increased calls for their dismissal.
According to Nana Akomea however, nothing will affect the timetable of the Parliamentary primaries.
“There has been no suspension of it. The procedures have been laid out a long time ago – the filing of the application, the vetting, the appeals processes and then the elections. All those have been laid down by the steering committee so there is not going to be any interruption.”
He indicated that at the national level, it is the director of election, the general secretaries of the various regions who will give an alert if there is going to be a problem, but no signal has been given so far.
“If there is any difficulty I’m sure the General Secretary will have communicated it to us so we know what to do but so far, there has been no communication to us from the office of the General Secretary.”
Meanwhile, a member of the National Council of elders of the NPP and Former Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Felix Owusu Agyapong is pleading with the rank and file of the party to exercise restraint and let peace prevail.
In an interview with Citi News, he called for calm since to him, the late Adam Mahama’s sacrifice should bring the party together rather than create divisions.
“We are all members of our great party and we empathize with bereaved family on the loss of our regional chairman and to plead with all well-meaning members of the NPP not to be throwing things at ourselves.”
“We are dealing with major sacrifices and with God on our side, all major sacrifices end up in redemption and for us, we need not to continue to talking against one another. We should try and be calm and let the good Lord help us with the solutions.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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