NDC MPs Go Wild Over 45 Seats

THE MAJORITY NATIONAL Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament has refuted allegations that it is in bed with the Electoral Commission for the creation of some 45 new constituencies for the 2012 general elections.

Addressing a news conference in Parliament House yesterday, in response to an earlier one by the minority NPP caucus, the majority leader, Cletus Avoka, rejected allegations that the ruling NDC was manipulating the EC in the creation of the constituencies.

According to him, the majority side was only cooperating with the EC, which had the mandate to create constituencies.

It would be recalled that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Parliament had accused the NDC of conniving with the EC to stampede the creation of the 45 new constituencies that could create chaos in the country.

According to the minority, processes in Parliament leading to the creation of the new seats were already generating enough confusion and if care was not taken, the EC and the ruling NDC would “push the country onto a very slippery road to catastrophe”.

Minority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said, “The Electoral Commission knows that as we speak today, there are no new constituencies in place, yet the EC went ahead and supervised the conduct of the primaries by the ruling government party in these non-existent constituencies.”

He described the conduct of the EC as “reprehensible and a complete illegality and clearly portrays the Electoral Commission as being in bed with the ruling NDC government.”

Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the MP for Suame, indicated that the NPP was not against the creation of the new constituencies but that the timing- barely two months before elections- was wrong, dangerous and disrespectful to the country’s democratic credentials.

Consequently, the minority called on Ghanaians, irrespective of gender, ethnic group, religion, political persuasion, creed or social or economic status to rise up and join them in appealing to the conscience of the powers-that-be “to save this nation from the vain experimentation being conducted by the Electoral Commission”.

However, Mr Avoka, also the MP for Zebilla in the Upper East Region, accused the minority of fostering anxiety over the creation of additional seats in Parliament when the EC was only discharging its mandate.

He dismissed calls by the NPP and some organisations such as the Trades’ Union Congress (TUC) and the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) for the EC to withdraw the controversial Constitutional Instrument (CI 78) because it was ill-timed.

Avoka argued that the EC had not complained about timing as well as logistics, saying the Commental, the TUC argued, was that no provision

of the Constitution imposed a duty on the EC to add new constituencies to the already existing ones.

TUC noted that there was the need to build confidence and engender the trust of Ghanaians and all political parties in the political process for peace to prevail.