NPP Is A Shame To Democracy

The current motions that the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is going through, in preparation for the election of party executives, have earned it pure disdain from a National Democratic Congress executive member of the Tema East constituency. Stephen Ashieley Adjei, alias Moshake, is appalled at the guerrilla tactics that the NPP�s current national executives are using to disqualify candidates. Speaking with The Enquirer over the weekend, he said with Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey deploying every trick in the book to shake off Paul Afoko�s quest to unseat him as chairman in the party�s upcoming national executives election, and MP�s sidelining constituency executives elections committees and imposing candidates at the regional level, democracy was in mockery in the NPP. Contrasting with his own party, the Tema East NDC executive member said such a mockery of democracy would never happen in his party, the NDC. Mr. Paul Afoko, a northerner, who has plucked the temerity to vie for the national chairmanship of the Akan-dominated NPP, is enduring extraordinary resistance from the party�s top brass, after an anonymous letter suddenly surfaced claiming he is an ex-convict with criminal records in the United Kingdom. As the accusation comes across as a guerrilla tactic to smack off Mr. Afoko from the national chairmanship race, Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, the party's current chairman, is believed to be behind the anonymous letter. observers reason that Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey, who has led the party to two humiliating electoral defeats as chairman, is stabbing Mr. Afoko from the shadows because he knows he will be defeated in an open election if Afoko is allowed to contest him in the party�s upcoming national executives election. Moshake lamented that the guerrilla tactics against Paul Afoko are not only upended to democracy, but that the tactics are also sending bad signals that fascism in the NPP pays. The party�s current chairman, collaborated with Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie, the party�s general secretary, to twist party loyalty into exacted hero-worship for the party�s 2012 Presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo. Consequently, Nana Addo has become a tin-god in the party to who the party�s flagbearership has become a birthright. Under the same maladministration of Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey and Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie, Moshake noted, democracy at the regional level in the party is phased out. The Tema East NDC man pointed out the flagrant violation of the party�s constitution in respect of the recent polling station and constituency executive elections as an example. Rhetorically, he questioned why the party is constrained to re-run suchlike elections in five constituencies. Moshake said it was due to the deployment of similar guerrilla tactics by the Obetsebi-Lamptey-led national executive of the party. Even though the party�s constitution empowers constituency executives to come up with election committees which will oversee the running of polling station elections, some party MPs sidelined the constituency executives and its committees and handpicked people for the position. In Tema East and Tema West, it is an open secret that the MPs disqualified people who were seen as not being aligned to their camps. Irene Naa Torshie Addo, MP for Tema West, is believed to have placed a call to Nana Akufo-Addo in London, demanding that everything be done to ensure that one Kwasi Poku is disqualified. The albums of contestants that were complied and forwarded to the national executive therefore were dominated by the MPs supporters. Because of the guerrilla tactics that were deployed by the MPs to eliminate their perceived opponents, many incumbent constituency executives of the party did not seek re-election. Many eligible people too were disqualified. The undemocratic happenings in the NPP are so barefaced that even some constituency congresses, including polling station elections by election committees appointed by the constituency executives have been declared null and void. Tema East is a ready example. In the Tema East spectacle, some Assembly members who were aspiring to be constituency executives were disqualified, while some were arrested and detained by the police, others still were assaulted. Moshake bemoaned the motions going on in the opposition, saying the undemocratic waves stand as potential mar on Ghana's credentials. He tied this with the fact that Nana Akufo-Addo, the party�s flagbearer in 2012, declared the NPP as a bonafide Akan heirloom, paving the way for Minority leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu to declare that no Ga in the NPP was fit enough to be Akufo-Addo�s running mate in the 2013 election. He also reminded that Kennedy Agyapong, NPP MP for Assin Central, openly declared ethnic cleansing against Gas and Voltarians in the Ashanti Region, while Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby and Mr. Kwame Pianim and others have been attacked and gagged after they spoke their minds in the party.