Sir, we beg to differ

We make reference to our front page story of Tuesday September 18 2007 in which the National Chairman of the NPP denied any collusion in matters involving bribery between his party's presidential aspirants and prospective delegates to the December congress.
He told us that the aspirants have the right to donate money to their respective constituencies and also have the democratic right to give money to anybody in the party whether a delegate or not.

While agreeing that constituencies have to be funded, we totally disagree with the notion that a political office seeker has the right to splash money about to bait prospective voters to his or her side. That's totally unethical and unacceptable. In fact such activities run counter to our country's electoral laws!

If that has been the practice in the past, that does not make it right; we have to set new ethical standards and discourage such behaviour.

We are rather disappointed that instead of taking all the allegations on board and at least investigating them, we are being told that the aspirants are only expressing their democratic rights!

It is not too late; we still insist that something not right is being condoned by this silence or acquiescence! The party needs to show that politics is NOT a dirty game…