Nana Addo's Supporters Have Always Gone Against The Law

Philip Longdon, an aide to aspiring flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Alan Kyerematen has cautioned supporters of Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, also an aspirant to be careful of the precedent they are setting as far as elections and campaigning are concerned. One of the ground rules of elections in the NPP were on Tuesday, trampled upon when over 107 Members of Parliament openly declared their support for the twice defeated NPP flagbearer. Some of them, including Deputy Minority Leader, Dominic Nitiwul; Tema West MP, Naa Toshi; MP for Old Tafo, Akoto Osei were all present and openly campaigned during the official launch of Nana Akufo-Addo's 2016 campaign in Accra. Other Regional Chairmen and some 34 constituency Chairmen of Greater Accra also declared their overwhelming support for the candidature of Nana Akufo-Addo ahead of the October 18 presidential primary of the party. One of the guidelines for an election in the NPP stipulates that "party officers at all levels as well as MPs shall refrain" from openly supporting or campaigning for any individual candidate ahead of the elections. However, this rule was ignored as the MPs, Regional Chairmen and constituency Chairmen openly declared their support for Nana Addo. Philip Longdon told Citi FM that there are lots of instances where supporters of Nana Addo have gone against the rules but has been ignored. �In a lot of instances they have gone against the rules and they have done it with impunity as far as Nana Addo�s campaign is concerned�total disregard to what the regulation say; but we just want to remind them that when we do these things we need to remember that we are in an election and tomorrow we will be facing another party and when that party beings to go contrary to the rules, what will be our position?� he bemoaned. He however noted that his candidate is not perturbed of the number of endorsement Nana Addo is getting because �we believe that Alan Kyerematen is the best candidate and we believe this is his time�. According to him, Alan Cash as he is popularly called is the �man who can match President Mahama and beat him fair and square�we are not perturbed in the least of all that is happening�. He also urged that supporters and aspirants must show their ability to do the job as well as demonstrate to everybody that �we are prepared to abide by the rules�not that we want to pretend to be democrats.�