The picking of nomination forms for the upcoming polling station elections of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has taken off amid confusion and controversies in some parts of the Kumasi Metropolis.

There was a charged atmosphere in the Kwadaso Constituency as party members besieged the Suntreso Police Station to get the constituency chairman, to release nomination forms for the upcoming elections.

Bonah Boadi, the Kwadaso Constituency Chairman, had sought refuge at the police station after the party members piled pressure on him to release the nomination forms to applicants, on Friday.

The applicants, seeking to contest positions at the various polling stations, gathered at the party’s office to pick up the nomination forms, but became agitated after facing challenges in getting the forms.

They alleged the constituency executives, led by the Chairman, were reluctant in releasing the forms to them.
 
One of the applicants, George Owusu Ansah, claimed that ahead of the previous elections four years ago, the executives also hoarded nomination forms.

“Instead of distributing the forms to party members for them to contest for polling station elections, they shared it among themselves and there was no election conducted in Kwadaso, and they want to repeat same this year,” Mr Ansah lamented and cautioned that “if our party executives are not careful, we do not know what is going to happen in Kwadaso”.

Mr Boadi explained that a representation from the party’s national level who was part of the election committee for the processes was currently indisposed and appealed to party members to remain calm and allow them to postpone the sharing of the nomination forms to a later date.

At the Bantama Constituency, party members also accused their constituency chairman, Fiifi Mensah, and the organiser, Shaibu Bamba, for including persons alleged to be members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in their constituency album ahead of the internal elections.

Speaking at a press conference, at the weekend, the Assembly Member for Ohwim Amanfrom Electoral Area, Erastus Ebo Boison, who is aspiring for the position of the constituency organiser, bemoaned the album after its completion might include 20 per cent of non-party members which would damage the future of the party.

He claimed Mr Boadi and other incumbents feared losing their positions, hence orchestrating such diabolical move for their own parochial interest which was an affront to the party’s rules and regulations on internal elections.

Mr Boison indicated that some of the current polling station executives had been suspended by the chairman who was against his move and called on both national and regional executives and the Member of Parliament for the constituency to do the needful to save the party from collapsing in the area.

Efforts to get in touch with those being accused for their comments proved futile.