Election 2020: NDC Ready for Parliamentary primaries; two served notice of interest In Lower Manya – Walter Yaw

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has set August 24 2019, to hold its parliamentary primaries to elect candidates for the 2020 general elections. Meanwhile, nominations was scheduled between July 10 and July 12, 2019 at all Constituency offices across the country.

Speaking to Rite FM on Monday, the Constituency Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at Lower Manya Krobo, Hon. David Walter Yaw Humenu says his constituency is ready to conduct the primaries; two hopefuls have notified the party of their interest to be part of the national exercise.

Mr. David Walter also explained to all and sundry and members of the NDC some constitutional requirement which must be adhered to.

“Party members willing to contest for the parliamentary primaries must hail from the constituency where they want to contest or, be a resident of the place for an accumulative period of five years within the last 10 years.”

“The primaries is not for new entries: he or she must be active member of the party for at least four years and must not be a member of any party,” David Walter Yaw said.

Unless you resign, office holders such as constituency, regional and national executive members are not qualified to contest for the Parliamentary Primaries.

Addressing the press at a press briefing on Thursday, General Secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketia explained that the party has pegged filing of nominations forms at Twenty Five thousand Ghana cedis (Ghc 25,000.00).

Women and people living with disability have been given a special dispensation where they have been allowed to pay only twelve thousand five hundred Ghana cedis (Ghc 12,500.00), which is half of the original amount for the filing of nominations forms.

Setting the rules of engagement for aspirants, Mr. Asiedu Nketia explained that aspirants must, first of all, satisfy the constitutional requirement which qualifies one to be a Member of Parliament. 

He or she must also satisfy the requirements of the party, adding that no one will be disqualified based on normal procedural errors.

The election for the parliamentary primaries has been fixed for August 24, this year.

NDC and the Electoral Commission

In another related development, Hon Walter has vehemently accused the Electoral Commission (EC) District office at Lower Manya Krobo of violating stipulations in the 1992 constitution regarding voters’ registration.

He is calling on the EC boss, Mrs Jean Mensah to reconsider her decision, saying, “the NDC will not accept anything less than the constitutional provision.”

“At the EC office, several hundreds of young people willing to register are unable to do so; they were denied the opportunity or the right to register.

“The problem is because the exercise was centralized, a lot of young people go there each day but experienced shortage of forms and they have to go home and return the next day which there is no assurance if they will be registered,” Mr. David Walter said.

There are about seven Secondary Schools in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipal. Qualified students from these schools Mr. Walter said were disenfranchised by the EC’s arrangement.

“When you go to the educational institutions such as Akrosectech, Krobo Girls, Makrosec, Amest, Kingdacoco, St Annes and Kpong vocational institute; majority of these people could not be registered and this people will be disenfranchised,’ he lamented.

Mavis Akosua Atteh.