Okaikoi South NPP Boils

The desire of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to retain the Okaikoi South seat in the 2012 elections appears to be in danger following the disagreement over who qualifies to represent the party in the constituency.

At the end of the primaries held on April 30, 2011, Mr Ahmed Arthur won by a slim margin, beating Ms Vicky Bright, a former Deputy Minister in the Kufuor Administration.

Since then, Ms Bright and her supporters have been protesting against the outcome of the polls, citing irregularities and alleged failure of Mr Arthur to meet the requirements for the primary.

They filed a protest at the National Executive Committee (NEC) for a review of the results but the request was turned down.

Ms Bright and her team again filed a protest and this time the appeal was upheld.

However, there seems to be no end to the apparent confusion in the constituency as Mr Arthur’s supporters have protested against the latest decision by the NEC to annul the result and asked for a re-run of the primary.

Some political commentators believe that this latest development would have calmed the nerves of Ms Bright and her supporters but Ms Bright has rather fired a salvo at the incumbent MP for the area, Nana Akomea, accusing him of launching a personal vendetta against her candidature.

According to her, the Okaikoi South MP was instrumental in the electoral stalemate in the constituency since he vowed to ensure that she would lose the last parliamentary primary to her rival, Mr Arthur.

However, Nana Akomea, in a rebuttal, had stated that Ms Bright was only a bad loser who had lost credibility with voters in the constituency.

He told the media in Accra that Ms Bright’s incessant complaints smacked of her own confusion.

Nana Akomea said he had not hidden his dislike for the candidature of Ms Bright and publicly pledged his support for Mr Arthur.

It is recalled that the NPP initially upheld the result of the primaries that elected Mr Arthur as the elected aspirant but after another complaint by Ms Bright the national executive of the party upheld recommendations of a committee chaired by the Deputy Minority

Leader, Mr Ambrose Dery, and cancelled the parliamentary primary held in that constituency, citing the flawed nature of the vetting process for its decision.

In a statement signed by the General Secretary of the NPP, Mr Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie, the National Executive, in collaboration with the regional and constituency executive bodies, would therefore reopen a fresh process for all interested parties to participate in, including the aspirants who contested the April 30 primary.

It added that a time table would be issued soon to guide the conduct of the process.

Nana Akomea, however, has expressed his disagreement with the decision by the party’s national executive to re-run the parliamentary primary in the constituency.

A committee set up by the party to investigate the alleged irregularities recommended the re-run, but Nana Akomea has indicated that the contest was won fairly by Mr Arthur, adding that annulling the result would be unfair.

“I do not think it is a fair decision because if it is about the credibility of the election, then, of course, the result would be affected, but it is not about the credibility of the election; it is about a mistake Mr Arthur made in his application form,” he said on an Accra radio station.