Agona Nsaba (C/R), Nov 26, GNA - Mr Theophilous Fesieni Maranga, a Lawyer based in the United States of America, was on Saturday elected as the Parliamentary Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to contest the 2008 in the Agona East.

He polled 164 votes out of the total 189 votes cast to beat the Reverend Ato Haizel of the Living Bread Resurrection Power Ministry, who had 21 votes.

Four votes were rejected and seven polling station executives were absent. Mr Kwame Amoah, Agona District Electoral Officer supervised the election, which should have been started at 9 AM but commenced at 12.45 PM.

The Central Regional executives of the party who were supposed to have conducted the election could not enter the Agona Nsaba Methodist Church Hall, because of a Court action against them at the Cape Coast High Court for overstaying in office by some party members. Addressing the delegates, Mr Evils Afriyie Ankrah, Deputy General Secretary Operations, condemned the court action against the regional and four constituency executives for failing to conduct election to select new officers.

He said the NDC would sweep about 80 percent of the votes both in the parliamentary and Presidential elections in the Central Region in the 2008 elections.

Mr Ankrah stated that the people of the Central Region had rejected the New Patriotic Party government because of its austerity measures that had brought untold hardship.

He called on the NDC supporters to intensify their membership drive to enable the party to win massively in the elections, saying that, "the fight in 2008 is not a small one, NPP cannot be pushed over just like that".

Mr Ankrah said the "I care for you" message embarked upon by Prof Atta Mills was working to perfection and posing serious threat to the ruling NPP especially in his recent tour in the Central Region. Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Export Promotion appealed to the supporters of losing contestant to assist the winning candidate to help recapture the seat.

He urged the members of the party to send the good message from house-to-house so that the masses would get it to vote against NPP. Mr Ahwoi called on supporters to sacrifice and work hard, adding that, Ghanaians were calling for the NDC to come back because the people of this country have tasted NPP and NDC administrations and they would judge for themselves in next year's polls.

Mr Maranga expressed appreciation to the delegates for the confidence reposed in him and pledged to work hard to win the seat for NDC. He said the Central and Western regions were "determinate factors" and appealed to the supporters of the party to work extra hard in the 2008 electioneering campaign to defeat the NPP. 26 Nov 07