The Technical Advisor to the Vice President, Dr Tiah Abdul-Kabiru Mahama, has opposed Alan Kyerematen’s allegation of bias in the New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s Super Delegates Conference.
Dr Mahama says Mr Kyerematen has no basis to make such a claim as he had support within the party during the exercise.
Speaking in an interview on JoyNews on Wednesday, September 6, Dr Mahama asked the former Trade Minister to take responsibility for his actions.
According to him, Mr Kyerematen’s withdrawal from the party’s presidential primaries is not surprising due to his poor performance in the Super Delegates Conference.
“That allegation is frivolous, that allegation has no legs to stand on and that allegation has no basis based on facts of the elections. So to suggest that any activist or supporter of any of the candidates has been intimidated will be untrue. There were several Members of Parliament who supported other candidates, especially Mr Alan Kyerematen and nothing happened to them.”
“There were cabinet ministers of state who supported Mr Alan Kyerematen and nothing happened to them. There were CEOs who supported him and nothing happened to them so to say that you have been threatened or your supporter has been threatened is to tell a lie and we must be bold enough to call out some of these things,” he said.
Alan Kyerematen on Tuesday evening announced his withdrawal from the NPP’s flagbearer race citing several reasons.
He mentioned intimidation, violence against a member of his campaign team and claimed that the party strategically organised the super delegates conference to favour one candidate over the others as some of the reasons for his decision.
Mr Kyerematen stated that pronouncements made by some leading members of the party before and after the elections lend weight to his observations.
“After having carefully analysed the results of the said elections, it is absolutely clear to me from events leading to, during and after the elections, that the Special Delegates Conference was strategically and tactically skewed in favour of one particular aspirant.”
“The level of intimidation of varying intensity, directly and indirectly, unleashed on a significant number of Delegates at various Voting Centers across the sixteen regions, is unprecedented in the history of our Party,” parts of the statement read.
These comments, Dr Mahama has dispelled.