C/R NDC executives protest nullification of Awutu Primaries

Kasoa, Aug 30, GNA- Mr Light Koomson, Central Regional Secretary of the NDC has expressed concern about the decision of the national of executives of the party to nullify the Awutu-Senya constituency primaries.

He said the Regional executives would continue to protest vehemently against the decision to cancel the delegates' conference held at Awutu-Bereku to select a candidate to contest the December 2004 elections.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in reaction to the cancellation of the results, Mr Koomson said the national executives of the party gave Central regional executives September 15, 2004 for all constituency primaries and to submit the lists of winning candidates to the headquarters in Accra.

According to Mr Koomson the delegates conference was held based on an ultimatum given to them by the national executives to conduct all primaries, adding that, this was not the first time regional executives had conducted election to select candidate.

He said it would be difficult for them conduct fresh primaries in the Awutu Senya constituency because time was not on the side. Alhaji Baaba Lamin Abu Sadat, who was the MP for the area in 1996-2000 polled 139 votes to beat Mr Moses Acquah, Assembly member for Awutu Bereku who had 117 votes.

He alleged that there were rumours in the constituency that some NDC party officials were planning to give out the seat to New Patriotic Party for reasons best known to them.

The Regional Secretary stressed that NDC had so many work to do in the region in order to defeat NPP in the elections. He warned that the regional executives had vowed that they would never go back and conduct fresh primaries in the Awutu-Senya constituency since the constitution of the party do not ban them to hold election to select parliamentary candidates.

Alhaji Baaba Sadat in an interview with the GNA said if the national executives continue making such unguarded utterances then they were narrowing the chances of Prof Attah Mills in the constituency. He said he was vetted together with Mr Acquah and a date was fixed for the election to be held and said members of the party had been baffled by the decision of the national executives to annul the results.