The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said the boycott of the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election on Thursday, 31 January 2019 by the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), was a premeditated action.

The NDC pulled out of the poll after a shooting incident that greeted the voting process at the La-Bawaleshie JHS polling station.

The party directed all its polling station agents and officers to leave the various centres.

The National Chairman of the NDC, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo announced the decision and blamed the governing party for the skirmishes.

Reacting to the NDC’s decision at a press conference on the same day, the Communication Director of the party, Mr Yaw Buaben Asamoa, accused the NDC of pulling out of the election for fear of losing the contest.

Mr Asamaoh told journalists that: “The election has four parties involved, the NPP, the LPG, the PPP and the NDC. Unfortunately, the NDC leadership appears to have abandoned their responsibilities to their people, they have refused to lead and in the fuse of reckless and premeditated action, have decided to throw their part of the election into disarray.

“We say it is premeditated because the signs were clear because three days ago, Mr Otukonor, the Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, issued a fiat that as far as they are concerned, the electoral register was bloated, and, therefore, if they didn’t have the register of their choice, they were going to pull out of the election.

“This position was maintained as late as yesterday even after the Electoral Commission had satisfied their requirements. As late as yesterday evening, the NDC insisted that they were going to pull out of this election if their conditions and their requirements as far as the electoral register was concerned, were not satisfied.”



The Adentan MP continued: “Further signs of the premeditated nature of what is going on is that as of 8:30 a.m. this morning, there were several areas in the constituency that did not have NDC agents. Many of us here personally went around. All the polling stations were calm and quiet. If there was anything of concern, it was the level of attendance and turnout. It appeared people wanted to go to work and come back and vote. It was generally peaceful and yet the NDC did not have agents at post as of 8:30 a.m. and, then out of the blue the NDC alleges killing of people and announces a pull-out from the election process in the field.

“Was there a Functional Executive Committee (FEC) meeting held in the field? Did the NDC leadership meet on the field and had an emergency meeting to decide, as corporate organisations and institutions ought to do, to pull out? No. We believe that if the pull-out was announced in the field by no less a person than the Chairman of the NDC, then this is a hugely orchestrated attempt to damage an election that they know from the beginning that they are going to lose”.