Politics of Tuesday, 9 April 2019

Source: ghanacrusader.com

NDC sitting on time bomb over parliamentary primaries

Asiedu Nketiah Asiedu Nketiah

Ghana Crusader can report that opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is passing through uneasy times following the announcement of timetable to guide parliamentary primaries.

Monitoring reports across the country suggest that new candidates are jostling seriously in a bid to contest sitting members of parliament.

Honest party bigwigs have conceded to this news portal that the process will be very bitter with name calling and counter-accusations.

The NDC last week tasked the Functional Executive Committee to hold the parliamentary primaries not beyond August 2019.

In a National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on April 5, 2019, the executives of the party rolled out the cost involved in the parliamentary election.

Parliamentary aspirants of the party will have to cough out a tune of GHc27,000.00 of which GHc2,000 will be for nomination and 25, 000.00 for filing.

National Executive Council (NEC), the highest decision making body of the party has further disclosed that, it has charged the Functional Executive Committee (FEC) of the party with the mandate to conduct the parliamentary elections after all necessary consultations have been done.

It is not exactly clear the steps the party is taking to forestall divisive tendencies that plagued the process in the run up to the 2016 general elections.

It would be recalled that the party hierarchy imposed some candidates on some constituencies while some aspirants were unduly disqualified by the vetting committee in 2016. These developments created divisions, pushing some candidates to contest as independent candidates. The party was only in the ruins of a divided front, a situation that resulted in its humiliating defeat in both the parliamentary elections and presidential ballot.

Intelligence reports have it that the current wave of new breeds hell bent in representing the party in parliament will present a big stumbling block for the old guards already serving in Parliament.