A major party in the Ghanaian political sphere, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has removed its candidate from Accra’s Ayawaso West Wuogun district by-election. This follows two shooting incidents involving their candidate and six members of the party at a polling station on Thursday.
Addressing pressmen and members of the public via Joy News in the country’s capital of Accra, NDC National Chairman Samuel Ofosu Ampofo announced that the party, after careful deliberation, had decided that the by-election had become too dangerous.
“In the circumstances, I have conferred with the parliamentary candidate and the leadership of the NDC, we have no option than to withdraw from the ongoing exercise,” the National Chairman said.
Ampofo further revealed that the party’s candidate, Delali Brempong, had been attacked in his house by unknown gunmen and was essentially being held hostage.
While reiterating that the NDC was no stranger to elections and the electoral process as a whole since its creation in 1992, the Chairman stressed that the current by-elections have been marred by several cases of “serious intimidation” from thugs in the form of National Security Operatives, and the election had slowly turned into a war zone.
“We have seen people in the attire of national security almost ten at every polling station. What they are doing is shooting indiscriminately, attacking people and intimidating people…Some of our people, including Sam George, have been attacked.”
“As a party, we believe in rule of law. We’ve been in by-elections before and we don’t believe that we are in a war zone. But this by-election has been turned into a war zone. We cannot subject any of our members to danger because of the election,” he explained.
Reacting to the alleged attack and the statement by the NDC, an opposing party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has come forward to blame and accuse the NDC of manipulating and instilling fear into voters during the election.
Speaking on behalf of the party, John Boadu the party’s General Secretary, said: “This is the impression our opponents want to create in order to scare people from going to vote. Other than that, what is the problem? Our sisters and brothers on the other side always will want to create confusion. When they are in government it is worse and when they are in opposition they are more dangerous.”
The ruling NPP is currently defending the constituency in Accra from the NDC after the death of its lawmaker in 2018. Both parties have been at loggerheads since independence, with each side clinching the presidency at some point. The Ghanaian Police Service has stated that an investigation has been launched into the shooting, with more details coming soon.
