Discrepancies in Kpando elections unhealthy - Della Sowah

Member of Parliament for Kpando, Mrs Della Sowah has pointed out that the election team in Kpando should not be afraid of an independent body to ascertain the conduct of the elections in Kpando if they feel they did the right thing.

Speaking to the press and her constituents in her home in Kpando, she said that she agreed with the NDC founder’s statement on the conduct of the branch elections.

Mrs. Sowah has admitted that trends of elections in some places within the Kpando constituency have been very worrying with many constituency executives having threatened that if nothing was done to correct the anomalies, they will leave the party en block.

She stressed that indeed, Mr Asiedu Nketia the General Secretary of the NDC party was in the constituency with the Deputy National Youth Organiser for a monitoring visit.

At a meeting, the General Secretary conceded that there were issues with the credibility of the elections in Kpando and cancelled the elections in two branches. He pointed out that for an election to be free and fair, there needed to be transparency and availability of forms. The General Secretary also said the date, venue, and time of the elections should be communicated at least 3 clear days before the elections were held.

However, Mrs. Sowah said those conducting the elections went ahead with irregularities without heeding the admonition of the General Secretary. The next day after the meeting with the General Secretary, the election was conducted in Tsakpe without prior notice to the people. The gentlemen who the General Secretary asked that they be included in the elections were all denied access.

The election team went to Tsakpe, ignoring the caution of some team members that the people had had no information.

The election Director then declared people unopposed without any voting conducted. This happened at the branches whose chairmen had told the General Secretary the day before that they sold all 20 forms in their possession.

The Tsakpe community is still making announcements daily asking the NDC to come back and conduct a proper election. The Asafoatse who was one of the aggrieved contestants said that "actions like these do not augur well for the party."

In many places the party registers were not used, people were given multiple ballot papers or disqualified under unfair conditions. People were denied access to the forms even though the Chairman had promised to sell forms to people and allow them to contest the elections.

Mrs Sowah stressed that there was the need for an independent body to conduct the elections in most branches. She said if those who conducted the elections feel that they did the right thing, then they should not be afraid to have an independent group verify what they did.

She said it is unacceptable to take away the people’s mandate in order to force candidates on them. She pointed that, she is collating the various petitions she had received to forward to the national Headquarters as directed.