Some Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) are abandoning their core duties and are busily campaigning to contest against sitting Members of Parliament (MPs) of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the party’s upcoming parliamentary primaries, according to information gathered.
This inordinate ambition, party sources indicate, is creating high tension between the MPs and MMDCEs, especially those in their second term, a worrying phenomenon that is dangerously breeding disunity in the various constituencies.
Consequently, a number of MPs, THE CUSTODIAN further gleaned, are threatening to abandon the work of parliament and concentrate on the forthcoming primaries if the party does not reign in the marauding MMDCEs.
The MMDCEs, this paper also learnt, are busily meeting party delegates whilst in office because nobody has told them to resign and that they will only leave office when the party opens nominations after causing so much damage, sometimes instigated by the Constituency executives.
“In some instances at the general elections, the sitting MP who may have lost the primaries through unfair means, will likely decide to go independent and when that happens you get the situation where their votes split and there is the possibility of the party losing the seat”, a party insider told THE CUSTODIAN.
It would be recalled that some MMDCEs were engaged in similar moves in 2018 and the party issued guidelines for parliamentary and presidential elections, directing all metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives who intended to contest parliamentary seats in areas where there were sitting MPs to resign three years before the primaries.
At a news conference in Accra, the then General Secretary, John Boadu explained that the directive also applied to constituency and regional executives who wanted to contest sitting MPs.
“Persons holding the following positions are estopped from contesting to become Parliamentary Candidates: National Chairman, General Secretary, National Treasurer, Regional Chairman, Regional Secretary, Regional Treasurer, Constituency Chairman, Constituency Secretary, Constituency Treasurer and MMDCEs”, Mr. John Boadu stated.
It is not clear if the new guidelines for the 2024 presidential and parliamentary primaries will repeat the last one to ensure sanity at the various constituencies.
