NDC primaries won’t be postponed – Dep General Secretary

The presidential and parliament primaries of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 13 will not be postponed, Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Mustapha Gbande, has said.

This is despite the injunction application filed by a flagbearer aspirant of the party Dr Kwabena Duffuor.

Speaking in an interview with Johnnie Hughes on the Sunrise show on 3FM Thursday, May 11, Mr Gbande said “The elections will not be postponed and I must state it very clearly.”

Regarding the concerns of Dr Duffuor, Mr Gbande explained that “In the absence of the photo album, because of similar concerns they have raised, we have not even submitted the album to the Electoral Commission because by law we are not obliged to go by the album. The album does not form a substantive argument., if indeed they have any challenges.”

Asked by Johnnie Hughes whether he was suggesting that the party did no wrong in not getting the album right, he answered “we are not saying that we didn’t get it right, there was nothing right or wrong.

“As stakeholders, we all have the responsibility to check the system and when you have checked the system and have identified that there is an error, you complain and the same would have to be corrected.

“Don’t forget that when they raised the issues of the litany of errors they have identified… The electoral commission of our party assured that because you are complaining of what has already been given to you we will go back and correct the errors, check them, and then give you a full complement of the album.”

Dep. General Secretary of the NDC, Mustapha Gbande states emphatically that the elections will not be postponed. #3FMSunrise

Full video: https://t.co/HOxaCgqwnz pic.twitter.com/qRZSrYioJ3

— #3FM927 (@3fm927) May 11, 2023

Dr Duffour, a flagbearer aspirant, filed the injunction application at the High Court on Tuesday, May 9 seeking to stop the primaries over concerns about the electoral album.

“The plaintiff avers that the partial delivery of the Photo Album to his representatives on 4th May 2023 was in itself out of time considering the magnitude of the verification exercise required of them before the internal elections of 13th May 2023,” portions of the application said.

The campaign team Dr Duffuor earlier demanded postponement of the May 13 Presidential Primaries over what it describes as a flawed register.

A petition sent to the Electoral Commission, Ghana (EC) and Elections Committee of NDC on Monday, May 8, under the signature of Kofi Kukubor, the Head of Research and Strategy with the campaign team of Dr Duffuor, stated that an extensive review of the voters’ register or photo album for 220 constituencies have identified several discrepancies that render the register incomplete or inaccurate.

The campaign team said going into the election with such a register undermines the credibility and integrity of the election and is capable of causing irreparable damage to the flagbearer hopeful Dr Kwabena Duffuor.