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ANTHONY AFENYO, one of the four National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary aspirants in the Ashaiman constituency who lost to the incumbent MP, Alfred Agbesi, during the party�s primaries has declared his intention to contest the 2012 election as an independent candidate. Tony, as he affectionately called, declined to confirm or deny if he would contest the coming elections as an independent candidate when DAILY GUIDE contacted him. He rather said he was preparing himself and would soon hold a press conference where he intended to break his silence over the issue. DAILY GUIDE was compelled to contact Tony over the decision to contest as an independent candidate after several posters of him asking residents to vote for him as an independent candidate were seen on several houses in the constituency. Some NDC members told DAILY GUIDE that the decision by Tony to contest as an independent candidate stemmed from the fact that he believed that he was not given a fair platform by party officials in the constituency to contest the incumbent MP. They further hinted that another factor which could have pushed Tony into deciding to go independent could have come from several calls from party members who had expressed their displeasure at the re-election of the incumbent MP. The members noted that a closer look at the difference in the figures obtained by the incumbent MP and the other candidates was not too big, a situation they claimed could cost Agbesi for going back to Parliament to represent the constituency. Analyzing what could be become of their party�s chances in the 2012 general elections if Tony went ahead to contest as an independent candidate, a party member mentioned that Hon. Agbesi polled 100 of the235 votes cast with Ibrahim Baidoo aka Bronx polling 63 while Tony polled 51. Another candidate, Abass Mohammed Osabutey, according to him, polled 21 while the last candidate, a certain Alhaji Suleman got nil. �If you look at the voting pattern of our colleagues, the delegates who chose Lawyer Agbesi you will realize that 135 delegates voted against him while 100 of them voted in his favour. What that means is that the incumbent MP got less than half of the votes even though he beat his other contenders� the party member noted. He continued that another thing that could spell doom for the party was the failure on the part of party top officials to try and unite them all. �Has anyone bothered to find out if the comments made by the other aspirants at the primary ground were true reflection of what their intents are? The answer simply is no and so nobody can tell us that there is total unity in the NDC as we ready ourselves for the 2012 general elections,� he stated. He expressed fear that the NDC might lose the seat to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and explained that Tony�s candidature was likely to sway some of the votes which were expected to go the MP.