Ellembelle NDC: Aggrieved supporters to injunct primary

Some concerned members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Ellembelle Constituency of the Western Region are threatening to put an injunction on the party’s upcoming parliamentary primaries following what they term as “subtle attempts to disqualify one of the aspirants”.

The vetting committee of the party has put on hold the vetting results of one of the two aspirants for the parliamentary primary in the constituency, Mieza Mea Alleah.

This followed a petition filed against the candidature of Mr Mea Alleah.

According to the concerned members, a few minutes before the vetting of Mr. Mea Alleah, a group of persons purported to be from the camp of one Kofi Anaman – who had earlier picked nomination forms to contest but had stepped down for incumbent MP Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah – brought in a “frivolous” petition against him.

“We believe that the nature of those petitions i. e. alleged variations in the signatures of endorsers, forcing people to endorse Hon. Alleah’s forms and alleged forgery of signatures on Hon Alleah’s forms are mere attempts to frustrate and disqualify him from contesting the 2019 NDC parliamentary primaries,” the spokesperson of the concerned members, Mathias Kwaw, said.

He stressed that the petitions are baseless as per the guidelines for the election of NDC parliamentary candidates for the 2020 elections as “the constituency electoral committee and the constituency executives duly crosschecked all the details of Hon. Alleah’s forms before accepting the same at the constituency party office on 18th July 2019”.

“The seeming acceptance of these bogus and useless allegations by the vetting committee further deepens our suspicion that there are some forces within the party scheming for Hon. Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah to go unopposed,” he alleged.

Coordinator of the concerned members Bob Ndede Amoako explained that Mr. Mea Alleah, at the vetting, was responding to the petition when a member of the vetting committee told him to stop and put his response in writing.

“He complied and wrote to the committee. The committee assured that they will also respond by Thursday, August 1, 2019 but. . .there has not been any response.”

He said while the Hon. Alleah team waits, the 2012 and 2016 candidate, Mr Armah-Kofi Buah, who is also a former Energy Minister, has been cleared to contest and has already commenced campaign in earnest.

“Unfortunately his [Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah] team is campaigning with the message that he is going unopposed which message we feel is disadvantageous to Hon. Alleah as the vetting committee is yet to rule on the petition.”

Mr. Amoako said attempts to get the National Executives of the party to explain the delay have not yielded any results.

“We have decided to give ourselves some time, if we do not hear anything we will have no option but to go to court for an injunction to be placed on the primaries till our grievances are addressed,” he threatened.

Mr. Mieza Mea Alleah was disqualified from contesting in the party’s parliamentary primaries in 2015.