Former National Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), and Convener of AriseGhana, Bernard Mornah, has claimed that the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) system has been unfair to one of its presidential aspirants, Francis Addai-Nimoh.
Speaking in an interview on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, he noted that the party has on several occasions not allowed Addai-Nimoh to contest its presidential primaries.
“In fact, the system that we know today has been very adversarial to Addai-Nimoh,” he said.
Mr Mornah added that although Addai-Nimoh has suffered in the party, he has been consistent in the past three elections.
“He goes in there, he gets the nod to go for the second round and after every special delegate, he gets the chance to participate in the main elections ..and from day one you’d not think that Addai-Nimoh is on the ground, yet he has been able to get into this,” he said.
With this said, he believes that despite the hostility, there are people within the party ensuring that he wins the NPP flagbearship race.
Meanwhile, an aide to Addai-Nimoh says the campaign team is optimistic about the outcome of the strategy used by the team ahead of the party’s presidential primaries.
According to George Obeng-Antwi, the team targeted selected delegates, hence the likelihood of Mr. Addai-Nimoh winning the polls.
He also explained that transportation and lunch money given to voters were also targeted.
“In the Special College Election, we went round all the constituencies and we had meetings with all the delegates but with this main election, we had a different strategy.
“We have coordinated all over the 275 constituencies and we had a plan to engage those we think will support Addai-Nimoh’s bid so we didn’t necessarily move around all the 275 constituencies and the time was also limited.
“The campaign process is such that when you invite someone to meet you, at a point it is just appropriate for you to take care of certain things like transportation and lunch. You look for a target and you work with that target not necessarily the entire delegates,” he said.
The NPP presidential race is between the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, MP for Assin Central Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, former Agric Minister, Dr Owusu Akoto Afriyie, and former MP for Mampong Francis Addai-Nimoh.