Defeated National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) of the Chiana-Paga has blamed his defeat on the party’s General Secretary’s failure to disqualify his opponent.
According to Abuga Pele, although his opponent Rudolf Amenga-Etego failed to meet the deadline for submission, Johnson Aseidu Nketia still went ahead to vet him and passed him to contest.
Legal practitioner, Rudolf Amenga-Etego kicked out the former Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) boss from the NDC ticket by a margin of less than 200 votes.
He polled 4,337 votes to beat Pele’s 4,177 votes out of the total 9,749 votes cast.
But Mr Pele who is standing trial for causing financial loss to the state has challenged his defeat.
He said his supporters noticed “many many mistakes” on the pink sheet used to collate results. According to him, 17 votes recorded on a pink sheet were later found to have been rather 117 votes.
On another, instead of 138 votes, 102 votes were recorded on the sheet, he claimed on Joy FM’s Newsnite program Tuesday.
Despite these claims, Mr Pele refused to blame the EC these mistakes.
It was squarely the manipulation of insiders in the party, he indicated. According to him, a lot of things went wrong from day one of the process for elections.
In the first instance, the parliamentary primaries first slated for November 2015 was “suddenly” postponed three days to the voting date, Saturday, June, 18.
He believes the postponement was “to allow his opponent to mobilize some resources because they had realized there were going to lose the election Saturday”.
According to Mr Pele, his opponent struggled to raise the money needed to file his nominations and only managed to do so three days after the deadline.
But this was not enough for the party to reject his application. At vetting, Asiedu Nketia brushed away concerns about his application indicating that not having money should not be an obstacle, he alleged.
Explaining the defeat further, he said days before the elections “suddenly a lot of money was pumped into the system.”
“Suddenly, everywhere people were asked to go and vote and they were paid GHC50 cedis” he alleged.
With his loss, Abuga Pele revealed that there is pressure on him to go independent. But he wants time to carefully consider his options.
"I have not decided what to do… I have not decided to go independent,” Mr Pele said.
He said if after exhausting measures to address issues related to his defeat fails he may have to give in to pressure to go solo. “If they insist I go independent then I have to go,” he said.
Mr Pele last lost out to the NPP’s Allowe Leo Kabah in 2008 after an NDC aspirant split the party’s vote by going independent. He snatched the seat back in 2012. If he goes independent, analyst predicts that the NDC will lose the seat.
Abuga Pele has always believed the party is scheming against him after he was charged following scandalous revelations at the youth employment agency, GYEEDA which he headed until he resigned in 2012.
Abuga Pele has accused the party of using him as a scapegoat in the GYEEDA trial which is still ongoing.
<<Print>>