The National Democratic Congress (NDC) will hold its parliamentary primaries on Saturday without the participation of 15 constituencies as the party seeks to settle points of contention on multiple fronts.
The affected constituencies are: Lower West Akim, Afram Plains South, Akwatia, Ayensuano, and Manhyia South in the Eastern Region; Adansi Asokwa and Mampong in the Ashanti Region; Ayawaso West Wuogon and Odododiodoo in the Greater Accra Region; and Amenfi East and Akontombra in the Western and Western North regions, respectively.
The remaining ones are Gomoa Central, Assin North, and Effutu in the Central Region, and Tano North in the Ahafo Region.
The party declared that it was trying to find solutions for the problems involving the impacted constituencies and that a new date for the elections would be revealed soon.
Elections: According to the NDC's acting director of elections, Daniel Amartey Mensah, the presidential primary would still take place in 275 constituencies nationwide, with the exception of Manhyia South in the Ashanti Region, where it had been suspended along with the parliamentary primary.
He said that the branch executive delegates list was relevant to the Manhyia South presidential primary.
Thus, 217 seats would have their parliamentary primaries, with 15 being postponed and 44 having no opposition.
There will be 55,862 candidates nationwide who will run in the parliamentary primaries.
Mr. Mensah stated that a total of 356,624 party delegates were anticipated to cast ballots in the presidential primary.
In addition to current Members of Parliament (MPs), former MPs, and government appointees, they also include branch, constituency, regional, and national executives, former national executives, NDC-appointed Article 71 office holders, and metropolitan, municipal, and district chief executives who worked for the party's administration.
The remaining individuals include former Deputy and Ministers of State, Ambassadors, High Commissioners, Members of the Council of State, Presidential Staffers who are Article 71 Office Holders, Foreign Chapters, and NDC Professional Forum members who have been selected by the NDC.
It was originally planned for the election to take place in 276 seats, including the Santrokofi-Akpafu-Lolobi-Likpe (SALL) region, but a number of events forced the suspensions, according to Mr. Mensah.
The Electoral Commission (EC), he added, will be paid to monitor the polls. Mr. Mensah confirmed the party's preparedness to organize the elections.
He said that in order to save time and assure efficiency, the party chose a decentralized strategy for the elections.
Voting will begin at 8 a.m. in all of the polling places where there are more than 1,200 delegates in order to ensure that the polls close by the deadline of 4 p.m., he added.
He stated that although the final collation center for the presidential election will be at the party's national headquarters in Accra, the results of the parliamentary primary elections will be announced at the constituency level.
Voting papers
The first set of ballots for the presidential primary had already been produced and delivered to the EC, according to Mr. Mensah, and the remainder would shortly follow.
He claimed that on Wednesday, the party leadership met with representatives of the three presidential contenders, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, Kojo Bonsu, and former President John Dramani Mahama, to discuss election-related details. Copies of the voters' register (albums) that would be used on election day were also distributed at the meeting.
Regarding the reported irregularities in voter registration brought up by Dr. Duffuor's campaign team, Mr. Mensah stated that the matter had been resolved and that the team may still file a complaint with the party's functional executive committee if they had any other concerns.
The remainder will be delivered to them in due time and will be relevant on election day, he said. "We gave out 228 copies of the photo albums to all the presidential aspirants for the elections last Wednesday," he said.
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