Polling station elections for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Manhyia North Constituency of the Ashanti Region was on Sunday, March 6, 2022, suspended. This was after chaos broke out between some party members and security officers.
The deployment of joint police and military officers to the constituency could not stop the aggrieved party members from disrupting the elections, which were to be held in 11 out of the 135 polling stations.
The aggrieved party members alleged the election committee had disqualified some aspirants without giving tangible reasons. They, therefore, want an immediate intervention from the party’s leadership.
“We are telling the party leadership that, if they do not sit down with the election committee and caution them about the injustice to the people of Manhyia North, we are going to mass up at the various polling stations”, one of them said.
“The leadership of the party must step in because we will resist any evil machinations as far as this election is concerned”, another appealed.
The Manhyia North Constituency has been one of the hotspots of confusion ahead of the NPP’s polling station executive elections.
Some party members had alleged that the constituency executives were giving preferential treatment to other party members in the distribution of the forms.
The party members have also been protesting a decision by the executives to sell out the forms to them after the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP paid for the forms.
The executives explained that the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the party paid for thousand forms to be given to incumbent polling station officers, but new entrants who are not covered would have to pay to obtain the forms.
This explanation did not go down with the party members, who massed up at the party’s office to pick up the forms to contest for positions at the polling station level.
The polling station elections have been scheduled for March 24-25, 2020. There has been malcontent in multiple constituencies over claims some party executives are hoarding nomination forms.
In some instances, the situation escalated, leading to tensions in some constituencies.
But the NPP has dismissed reports suggesting that nomination forms are being hoarded explaining that the documents have been made available for easy accessibility.
“I am tempted not to believe so much that, people are being denied [forms]”, Evans Nimako, the party’s Director of Research and Elections, stressed.
