Sissala Constituencies deplore NPP alliance

Tumu, Feb.23, GNA - The Sissala East and West Constituencies' branches of the New Patriotic Party in the Upper West Region have urged the National Executive of the Party to open nominations for Parliamentary Primaries to be held in the two constituencies in order to relieve the party supporters of frustrations and disappointment.

They warned that if the National Executive and the Presidential Candidate of the Party decide to hand over the two constituencies to the People's National Convention as was done to the Sissala East constituency in 2004, they would consider any options opened to them. The Executives of the two constituencies made the call in a joint news conference held at Tumu in the Sissala East District on Friday, which had the executives, polling station chairmen and a large number of party supporters from the two constituencies in attendance.

Mr. Issahaku Tahiru, Sissala East chairman, Mr Bukari Darimani, Sissala West chairman and Mr Issahaku Amidu Chinnia and Mr. Alhassan Nyali Monto, Sissala East and West secretaries respectively signed the statement that was read at the conference.

In the 2004 general elections, they said the NPP did not achieve the result that they expected from the local alliance with PNC in the Sissala East constituency and there was no justification for it to be repeated this year.

Producing the election results to back their claims, they said while the NPP members voted for the PNC Parliamentary candidate, he instead of reciprocating by backing President Kufuor rather campaigned for his Presidential candidate and carried all PNC supporters along to vote for their candidate.

"It is not true that if the NPP field candidates in the two constituencies, NDC will win the seat. This is cheap propaganda being speculated by the PNC Members of Parliament and their supporters to stay in office", they stated. The Party executives said the two PNC MPs had no working relationship with the NPP at the constituency level and this had prompted party members to constantly call for election of MPs who are NPP and could relate directly with them to facilitate development. They said the electorate in the area had seen and appreciated what the NPP government had done for them after seven years in office and therefore there was no doubt that the Party could defeat the NDC in the two constituencies.

"The assertion by people outside the two constituencies that the PNC controls the area is false since electoral victories in the Sissala area are based on issues and not the person that seeks to lead them". There was no guarantee that if the NPP did not contest the Parliamentary election, the PNC MPs could retain the seats since their performance over the last four years had been abysmal, they observed. "Many members of the PNC here have lost confidence in them and have defected to the NPP and we will challenge anybody who doubts our claim to carry out a political research in the two constituencies to ascertain the truth".

The two constituencies pointed out that the Presidential candidate of their Party had consistently stated that the Party would contest every political space in Ghana and they thought that was the best way forward for the Party. 23 Feb. 08