Electoral Commission officials were forced to temporarily suspend voting in the parliamentary primary for the Kpone Katamanso in the Greater Accra region as messages went round purporting one of the five candidates in the election had pulled out.
A viral message was sent round to the 695 delegates in the constituency Saturday morning while voting was ongoing, claiming William Ofosu Asante has withdrawn from the parliamentary race for the New Patriotic Party, triggering threats from some delegates, our correspondent Josephine Frempong reported.
The message, which was couched to suggest it was coming from the candidate read in part “Patrons, from the look of things i cannot win this election and I humbly throw my support for David Annang”.
Sent as bulk SMS, the message had ‘William2020″ as the sender.
Supporters of Mr Ofosu Asante threatened to end the election. They began chanting forcing electoral officials to suspend polls for about 15 minutes to resolve the issue.
Some NPP executives, including Irene Tutu, Greater Accra regional treasurer, Nana Simpe, Kpone Katamanso constituency Chairman, and David Asante were called in and after 15 minutes of meeting, announced a resolution for voting to resume.
Police personnel on the ground ensured nothing untoward happened until the party’s executives arrived.
Earlier, Mr Asante described the information contained in the message as “falsehood” and asked all delegates to disregard same, adding “William is the winning candidate”.
“What we just witnessed is detestable, shameful and not supposed to be entertained in our body politics,” he told Josephine.
“I’m a grassroots person, I’ve been a polling station chairman and I have the base… in fact the people who are voting today are the people who make up my team so the only way whoever decides to get us down is to send interesting message that William is stepping down,” he said.
Meanwhile Mr Annang has denied knowledge of the messages saying “I have no idea; I haven’t even seen the text message.
He told our correspondent that he does not “subscribe to such because I want to win on my strengths and my popularity….I don’t think it is coming from me”.
Hopeson Yaw Adorye, William Ofosu Asante, Dadzie Prince, Mark Fuachie-Sobreh and David Annang are contesting the constituency primary.
By 3news.com|Ghana