The Member of Parliament (MP) for Afram Plains South, Joseph Appiah Boateng has given the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana a 48-hour ultimatum to clarify which parliamentary candidate is representing the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the area.
Failure on the part of the EC to respond to the matter, he noted, will see a court action instituted against the electoral body.
Two candidate of the NDC, Eric Osei-Owusu and Mark-Oliver Kevor, have filed their nomination to contest the parliamentary seat of the Afram Plains South following the decision of the incumbent MP who also won the primary of the party, to step down.
Boateng stepped on the deadline day for the submission of nomination form as a result of a court action brought against him by one of his constituents.
He was quickly replaced by Mark-Oliver Kevor, the Eastern Regional Secretary of the NDC who also hails from the area by the party’s Eastern Region executives.
However, Mr. Eris Osei-Owusu, CEO of Ghana Buffer Stock who contested the party’s primary but lost to Joseph Appiah Boateng also filed his nomination, claiming he was given the clearance to do so by the party’s General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah.
It is however, not clear who among the two is representing the NDC as its parliamentary candidate for the Afram Plains South.
Boateng in an interview with Kasapafmonline.com on the sidelines of parliamentary sitting on Wednesday said he suspects that some underhand dealings are going on between the EC and some officials of the NDC and therefore wants the electoral body to clarify on the matter latest by Friday, October 13, 2016.
He believes there are attempts by some officials of the NDC to get Mark Oliver Kevor to step aside for Eric Osei-Owusu to represent the party.
Kevor, according to Boateng, was the first to file his nomination to represent the NDC in Afram Plain South.
“Kevor filed his nomination on September 30, 2016. Immediately after filing, the DCE in the area also came with Eric Osei-Owusu to file. So, there was the Returning Officer in the area took the two forms and sent it to the national headquarters of the EC for decision on the matter. But the issue triggered a heated argument between the other political parties and the EC officials where the Returning Officer was prevailed upon to declare who among the two NDC candidates filed his nomination first.”
“Now, I have heard that there are attempts by the EC to announce Mr. Osei-Owusu as the candidate for the NDC which is very wrong because he couldn’t file his nomination form. That aside, as at the time of filing the nomination, Osei-Owusu’s voter’s ID had not been transferred to the area to make him eligible to contest the parliamentary seat.”
“So, I want the EC to come out and tell us who in their scheme of things is eligible to contest because two candidates cannot file on the ticket of a political party. So, I am giving them 48 hours to do so. If not, then we have to go to court and seek for an injunction on the parliamentary polls,” he noted.
