Some New Patriotic Party (NPP) polling station executives in the Akuapem North Constituency are praying an Accra High Court for an order of injunction restraining the NPP from presenting the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Ama Dokua Asiamah, to the Electoral Commission as the party’s candidate for the Akuapem North Constituency in the 2020 general election without convening an extraordinary delegates conference.
The polling station executives are also asking for a declaration that, the NPP’s purported nomination and approval of the incumbent MP for Akuapem North Constituency as the NPP’s parliamentary candidate in the upcoming general election in December 2020 is a blatant disregard of the NPP’s constitution, illegal, null, void and of no effect.
The polling station executives said unless the honourable court intervenes, their constitutional rights as delegates of the NPP have been severely violated, is being violated and will be irretrievably violated by the NPP.
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The polling station executives, represented in court by Stephen Asare Darko and seven others, argued that the party’s constitution requires an Extraordinary Delegates Conference to select a parliamentary candidate for the constituency.
However, they said the party disregarded this constitutional provision and election regulations and surreptitiously called a meeting of carefully selected members of the constituency to a private residence where they purportedly nominated and declared her as the NPP’s parliamentary candidate for the December 2020 elections.
According to the delegates, NPP as a political party is required by law to conduct its affairs in openness, transparency and in conformity with Democratic principles without bias and favour in the selection of its candidates but the opposite is happening in the Akuapem North Constituency.
The Accra High Court of Justice, General Jurisdiction Division 4, presided over by her lordship Olivia Obeng, adjourned the case to August 13, 2020, because the defendant didn’t make an appearance in court.
Counsel for the plaintiff, Raymond Bagnabu, said in court that security guards at the NPP’s party office declined the bailiff entry into the party’s headquarters to serve them.
However, he hinted at filing for substituted service in order to get leadership or representative of the NPP to take note of the summons.
The group, however, insisted that the court nullifies the process and compels the NPP to hold an extraordinary conference to elect their Parliamentary candidate.
The NPP delegates are, thus, seeking to secure an injunction on the party and to restrain the party to present Madam Asiamah as NPP’s parliamentary candidate for the Akuapem North constituency.