Ghana: NPP internal election chaos continues

The NPP’s election vetting committee has allowed businessman and founding member of the NPP, Paul Afoko, to continue campaigning to run for the party’s national chairmanship, but continues to suspend his vetting process.

The NPP internal election chaos is continuing because, according to party insiders, although the party’s national chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey and General Secretary Kwadwo “Sir John” Owusu Afriyie continue to be the frontrunners for their respective party offices, both men are facing significant opposition at next month’s expensive party congress at the Northern Region city of Tamale. 

On the plus side, the party’s vetting committee has softened one major controversy by allowing one of Obetsebi-Lamptey’s opponents, the businessman Paul Afoko, to continue campaigning after, as we have reported in previous issues, it had earlier suspended investigations into his fitness to run following receipt of a non-attributable allegation over his alleged past wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, according to NPP elections director Martin Adjei Mensah, the vetting committee is still investigating Afoko’s suspension but has allowed him to continue campaigning for the present until a decision is taken. This has led Afoko to again voice his disappointment while campaigning in Upper West Region that the committee will not reveal the name of the party member who suggested that he had served a prison sentence in the UK for fraud.

Given that the other three other candidates for the post of national chairman have all been cleared by the vetting committee, Afoko may indeed be campaigning at a disadvantage.

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Ghana: NPP launches its campaign for December 2012 elections

In a bid to take back the political initiative from new President John Mahama, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) launched its manifesto, entitled “Transforming Our Lives; Transforming Ghana, building a free, fair and prosperous society”, and held a campaign rally at Mantse Agbona in James Town which is one of the poorest areas of the capital Accra.

 

The 2012 presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, his running mate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, and all of the NPP parliamentary candidates were officially presented to the electorate. Former President John Agyekum Kufuor also spoke at the event. This was meant to show the NPP's new sense of unity cementing the bonds between Akufo-Addo (Akypem); Bawumia (Northern Muslim ex-President Kufuor (Ashanti).

 

Akufo-Addo got that message across effectively and concentrated on pushing an overall positive note – about the NPP's determination to invest in mass education and training, and boost opportunities for entrepreneurs. Secondary education for all is the NPP's big new idea – even if they are doubts about its cost see Comment & Analysis) If elected the transformation of the country's education structure would be the cornerstone of NPP government policy. Akufo-Addo told supporters his party would redefine a school system in which 60% of children did not reach secondary school and some did not even make it into the classroom.

 

The NPP's launch went down well in Greater Accra which is a swing region and a key test of voter sentiment. It established the NPP as policy-heavy and was a sharp rebuke to the NDC which had been relying on strong voter sentiment for the late President John Atta Mills and his role as “prince of pace”.

 

The manifesto launch has both sharpened and elevated the election campaign above the previous name calling on both sides. The attack dogs are, however, still operating but both Akufo-Addo and Mahama are trying to rise above it by adopting a statesmanlike demeanour. The NPP chairman denigrated the Mills-Mahama government as Ghana's “worst-ever” which, to many, might seem hyperbole but it will certainly spark a fierce response from the NDC's own militants.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

 

© 2012 Menas Associates

Ghana: Judicial independence debate rumbles on

Chief Justice Georgina Wood has denied allegations of corruption levelled against her by a group calling itself the Gospel Evangelical Crusades and Providence Foundation (GOEVAC-PFG).

The group, led by Reverend Kwarteng Amaning, held a press conference on 2nd September at which they accused Wood of aligning herself with the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), and called for her resignation on the grounds that she had “displayed some level of incompetence and misuse of her office during the 2008 presidential run-off.”

According to Amaning, Wood's decision to allow a court to sit on a weekend to hear a case brought by the NPP disputing the Tain constituency's 2008 election results constituted a breach of the law. He claimed Wood went beyond her remit in allowing a court to sit on a 'non-day'

A response released by Wood's office said, “For well over a year, by lawful authority under the hand of the CJ, at least two courts sit every Saturday, which is a non-day.” The statement underlined her commitment to free and fair elections, and to transparency in the judiciary, criticising recent “scurrilous or vitriolic attacks on the person of judges”.

According to local media reports the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) took Amaning in for seven hours of questioning on 4th September.

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

© 2010 Menas Associates