<<Print>>

The intention of the leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to bulldoze its way to compel delegates of the party to vote on regional basis at its upcoming congress to elect a presidential candidate has been stopped by the Electoral Commission (EC). The EC has rejected the regional voting as proposed by the NDC leadership, allegedly with the support of the Mills campaign team. NDC General Secretary Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, alias General Mosquito, had insisted that the party delegates would vote on regional basis because he saw nothing wrong with it since it was in line with the procedure of national voting. But the EC said the move was unacceptable as it could be abused in favour of one candidate. According to sources, the EC was convinced by the Nana Konadu campaign team, of the fear of possible victimisation of delegates if the regional voting was allowed unchallenged. The campaign team has therefore called on delegates to be bold and vote according to their conscience on Saturday, July 9 in Sunyani when the party gathers to elect a presidential candidate for the 2012 polls. Daily Guide learnt that last Wednesday, members of the Nana Konadu campaign team, led by spokesman for the Rawlingses Kofi Adams, stormed the EC with a couple of complaints, chief among which was their decision to kick against the intention of the NDC national executive to introduce a new system of voting at the Sunyani congress. Other issues included the designing of the ballot paper and the position of candidates on the ballot paper. The Konadu team was said to have taken these issues to the EC because no decision had been taken on them and did not want any surprises to be sprung on it and its candidate on congress day. Before then, the party executive had gone to meet officials of the EC on Tuesday over the organisation and arrangements for the congress. When the issue of regional voting popped up in the course of the discussion, sources at the EC said, the party leadership was told that the idea of voting on regional basis, which it wanted to introduce, was wrong. The EC subsequently advised the party�s leadership to desist from using any such unorthodox means in voting since it could raise issues about the credibility of the elections. Apart from that, the procedure could also put a lot of strain on the EC since it would demand the EC to bring over 50 or more staff to conduct and supervise the elections. Aside that, members of the Konadu campaign team had expressed concern that it could possibly cow delegates into voting in a certain direction for fear of being victimised. Credible information gathered by Daily Gude indicates that the NDC has an established system of voting which never came up for discussion for a possible change when the guidelines for the upcoming congress were being developed. That allegedly compelled the Konadu team to raise issues with the introduction of a new voting pattern (regional basis) at the congress. Over the years, the practice at NDC congresses has been that, delegates of a particular region were called to vote and were made to vote constituency-by-constituency, after which another region was called to follow suit. For this reason, the leadership of the NDC has been advised to use transparent and fair means to organise the elections so that the EC could have fewer members of staff to conduct the elections since the 3,125 delegates was a smaller number relative to the national elections. With this, the EC was said to have given the party the assurance that when voting starts at 1pm, they (EC) could finish by 5pm, thereby allaying the fear of the leadership that not voting on regional basis would waste time. According to our source, the EC has since advised the party to go and resolve the issue and report back to it in the shortest possible time since congress is just a few days away. Meanwhile, information reaching Daily Guide indicates that the campaign team of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, former First Lady, has written to the party requesting a meeting tomorrow over the modalities of the elections.