By Patrick Biddah
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has warned members of the party seeking to contest as parliamentary candidate not to possess dual citizenship.
The members residing outside the country who have often been the culprits leading to legal battles have been asked to purge themselves before taking any such parliamentary ambitions.
The Chairman of the NDC , Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, who issued the warning at a press conference on Wednesday, Jan 18, 2023 at the party headquarters, explained that it is to prevent the party from falling into legal battles after parliamentary elections and the NDC candidate emerging victorious.
He said the onus lies on the individual seeking to contest on the ticket of the NDC to prove that they do not hold any dual citizenship before being cleared to contest.
This warning seem to have become necessary when the Member of Parliament for Assin North , John Quastson and his colleague MP for Jomoto, Dorcas Afo-Toffey, faced legal issues pertaining to their dual citizenship.
Aside from this warning, the Chairman has also advised against candidates who will abandon campaigning by traveling back to cool off abroad after they have won to become the Parliamentary Candidate for a particular constituency.
Giving hint of what will be done if this happens , he said there will be a rerun of the contest to produce another parliamentary candidate.
For him , it will help solve the problem where the candidate of another party, will get advantage to campaign extensively in the absence of the NDC candidate.
Mr Asiedu Nketiah, who was making this remarks at the announcement of the timetable for both parliamentary and presidential primaries, also explained that forms for the parliamentary contest will be sold online.
The selling of the form online, he added is to avoid the situation where aspirants will complain of not getting access to the forms because a Secretary may have locked the office ostensibly to deny an aspirant to the advantage of another.
As it turned out, the date for both the presidential and parliamentary was fixed on May 13, 2023..
The General Secretary, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, who announced the time table, indicated that nomination will be opened on February 22 and end of the 24.
