Mr. Ayariga’s decision will indeed come as a surprise to many since there had not been any known disagreement between him and the party, except for a shooting incident on the congress day between his supporters and that of the eventual winner, Dr. Edward Mahama, which was eventually quelled by the police before voting started on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n[contextly_sidebar id=”1vG3PIgcmUq8ZyF6aYrKaGsS3lhOUz6G”]Hassan Ayariga was also accused of engaging in vote buying ahead of the congress.\u00a0He was said to have openly distributed cash, motorcycles and mobile phones to some of the delegates in a bid to be re-elected as the party\u2019s flagbearer.<\/p>\n
He was beaten by Dr. Edward Mahama, a 70 year old man who returned to the race after \u00a0leading the party from 1996 to 2008.\u00a0The 2012 Presidential Candidate lost with 426 votes as\u00a0Dr. Edward Mahama polled 492.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ayariga dwindled the PNC’s votes in the 2012 elections polling just 0.22% of the total votes.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Radio Ghana on Sunday, Mr. Ayariga indicated that he will still contest as a Presidential Candidate in the 2016 general elections despite losing the bid to do so on the PNC’s ticket.<\/p>\n
Without\u00a0explaining into details what may have triggered his rather shocking decision, he simply said, \u201cI am breaking away because the party does not deserve Hassan Ayariga.\u00a0My name and face will be on the ballot boxes in 2016\u201d and added\u00a0he would not stand for the PNC any more.<\/p>\n
He described his former party as illegal saying, \u201cI am not going to endorse an illegal party anymore. I have tried to build this party. I have tried to build this party from illegality and make it more formidable and more united.\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ayariga revealed he would be holding a press conference \u201cmaybe\u201d tomorrow [Monday] where he would elaborate further on\u00a0his decision to leave the PNC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be coming out with a press conference, maybe tomorrow [Monday], and you will hear about the PNC and myself.\u00a0Let it unfold and the Ghanaians will know the impact of Dr. Hassan Ayariga in the PNC and in Ghana politics,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
It is unclear yet whether Mr. Hassan Ayariga, who has been accused of being a mole for the incumbent NDC will contest the 2016 election as an independent candidate or he will form an entirely new party.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Defeated Presidential hopeful of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Hassan Ayariga, has shockingly announced his breakaway from the party after last Saturday’s congress. He claims he\u00a0was unfairly treated at the\u00a0just ended congress that saw his defeat. \u00a0 Mr. Ayariga’s decision will indeed come as a surprise to many since there had not been any known […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":173935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[43,38],"class_list":["post-174181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=174181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/173935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}