NDC group wants Rawlings' girl out

A group calling itself Klottey Korle Grassroots Supporters Network of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is putting a lot of pressure on Dr. Zenator A. Rawlings, daughter of Ex-President J.J. Rawlings, to step aside as the party’s parliamentary candidate in the constituency for the November general election.

According to the members, Dr Rawlings has been found not to be duly registered by the Electoral Commission (EC) and therefore did not qualify to contest on the ticket of the party during the primary last year.

A statement issued in Accra and signed by one Nana Kwesi Aburam-Korankye, the convener of the group, also said that they were reliably informed that plans were being hatched to indefinitely suspend the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Nii Armah Ashietey, and one Nii John Coleman from the party to pave way for Zenator Rawlings to proceed with her parliamentary ambition undisturbed.

“They are planning to suspend Hon. Nii Armah Ashietey and Nii John Coleman so that after the EC opens the register for the limited registration in April, our sister will register and the situation will be manipulated for her to go unopposed.

“We assure those planning this that…..this is the great NDC built on accountability, probity and transparency,” the group cautioned.

“Our founder is the great Jerry John Rawlings. He definitely and certainly will not orchestrate or allow persons to orchestrate the victimization of innocent party warriors who have toiled for this party, simply to allow his ineligible daughter to run for Klottey Korle,” they added.

“We are disappointed in the national, regional and constituency executives of our party who presided over their mandated task of vetting persons who were interested in representing our party in this year’s general election and allowed Zanetor Agyeman Rawlings whom they ought to have known right from the start did not qualify per the rules of the party, the constitution of the party, and the Constitution of Ghana, to contest the November NDC parliamentary primary.”

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They insisted that “it is this lapse that has dragged the name of our party into disrepute and today, our party is being discussed in the media in a negative light.”

Members of the Klottey Korle Grassroots Supporters Network claimed they sighted the letter from the Electoral Commission which revealed that Zanetor Agyeman Rawlings is not a registered voter on the Electoral Commission’s National Voter Register.

“This news does not surprise some of us since we have, from the very beginning, tried to draw the attention of our party’s structures to the ineligibility of Zanetor Rawlings to run on our ticket for parliament.

“We had our own reservations, and even petitioned the founder of our party who happens to be the father of Zanetor Rawlings to call our sister, his daughter, to order and convince her to step down from her overzealous ambition of running for parliament when she did not qualify per the rules of the party and the country.

“There were other attempts by other members of our party in the constituency to correct the wrong Zanetor’s candidature posed to the fortunes of the party in the constituency, yet all of these good-faith attempts to save the image of our party and that of our sister from ridicule unfortunately fell on deaf ears,” the group recalled.

They claimed that Zanetor Agyeman Rawlings deceived the people of Klottey Korle, the NDC and the entire country when she knew that she was unqualified to run for parliament yet “went ahead and picked nomination forms, went through the vetting process, initiated a campaign and actually contested for the NDC parliamentary primary last November,” adding “our dear party and our sister Zanetor will clearly be further embarrassed if she is not called to order.”

The group is demanding “unqualified apology from Zanetor Agyeman Rawlings to the party, the other contestants and the electorate in Klottey Korle, for taking all of us for granted and wasting our time.”