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The disqualified presidential candidate of the Independent People’s Party (IPP), Mr. Kofi Akpaloo and his national executives have thrown their weight behind the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to help the elephant family capture political power on December 7.

According to the party, the decision was taken because the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the other parties failed to contact the IPP for support.

Speaking to the DAILY HERITAGE after lending his party’s support to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the NPP, Mr. Akpaloo said “the NDC did not approach us like the NPP did for us to even compare.”

While addressing the media yesterday, Mr. Akpaloo said one of the reasons why they decided to endorse the NPP was that the IPP shared the same vision as the NPP.

“As a party, we have fantastic ideas; we have so much inside us though we are a new party. But, I can tell you that if you give us the opportunity, we will be able to transform Ghana, so we don’t want to shelve these ideas.”

Pressure

Mr. Akpaloo said the pressure that came from the party members for them to support any of the parties was intense, “so we came together, sat down and took a decision together. So, we decided to support the NPP, but that doesn’t mean we are going to be in that party.”

We ‘II re-organise after 2016

According to him, “we are only helping the party now for them to win power in 2016. Then after 2016 we will re-organise our party and move on. We have decided to throw our weight behind the NPP, whose presidential candidate is Nana Akufo-Addo. So, all our executives are ready to work with us as a team to do the necessary campaign to help the NPP to capture power. We promise you (Akufo-Add) that we will do exactly that.”

He pledged that the IPP would not disappoint the NPP and urged whoever would be defeated to accept defeat in the name of peace.

EC chair blamed for woes

Mr. Akpaloo, whose party failed twice to submit complete presidential nomination forms to the Electoral Commission (EC) for him to contest in the presidential race, chided the EC boss and her team for his woes.

“We, as a party, are supposed to contest the 2016 elections, but unfortunately, Mrs. Charlotte Osei and her team decided not to include us. We went to court all right, fortunately for us, the Supreme Court gave us the opportunity to go and make amendments to our forms. We did that as required by law, but Mrs. Osei and her team decided finally that they will still not allow us to contest the 2016 elections,” he stated.