Dr. Kwabenya Duffuor, one of the three candidates vying for the National Democratic Congress’ presidential slot, has quit the race.
This comes barely hours after withdrawing his suit against the NDC that sought to injunct the party’s presidential and parliamentary primaries tomorrow Saturday, May 13, 2023.
Addressing a press conference on Friday evening, the former Finance Minister stated that his decision is based on his grievances with the processes surrounding tomorrow’s primaries.
He said the processes have been marred by a lot of unresolved irregularities.
“As at this time, the party has begun distributing the ballot papers to the various regions and constituencies without our involvement. I wish to reiterate my commitment to the party and grassroots, however my concerns that the party is not ready to conduct free and fair elections is evident for all of us to see,” Dr Duffour said.
“Taking part in such an event will be acting to knowing drinking from a poisoned calabash. After consulting with my support base nationwide, I have been left with no choice but to withdraw as I cannot contest in an election blatantly flawed with irregularities regardless of all my effort to draw attention to the same.”
Dr. Duffuor who is also former Governor of the Bank of Ghana recalled, “At the meeting chaired by the former speaker of parliament, Rt Hon Edward Doe Adjaho, all stakeholders at the meeting agreed that the Party Chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketia would immediately set up a technical team comprising the technical representatives from the 3 presidential aspirants and the party’s election committee to determine how soon the irregularities with the voters register could be resolved in readiness for the Presidential primaries. The technical committee was to subsequently submit a report to parties after this had been determined As I speak with you, our technical team is currently at the Party headquarters to undertake this activity.
“However, despite the assurances given to myself and my team by the Chairman of the party, the executives of the party, in a complete and unacceptable breach of faith, went ahead to convene a press conference announcing that the elections would go ahead tomorrow, without having resolved the concerns surrounding the voters register as decided at the meeting of the Council of Elders”