Former presidential aspirant of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Kwabena Duffuor has justified his decision to withdraw from the party’s contest.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Dr. Duffuor told journalists that he could not partake in the elections because the voters register which will be used for the exercise is fraught with irregularities.
The former Minister of Finance said he had relentlessly tried to get leadership of the party to rectify anomalies he and his team detected in the register in order to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
But the party’s executives, after agreeing at a meeting to set up a committee to address the irregularities, proceeded with the processes without, first, resolving the error-ridden document as agreed.
Dr. Duffuor, who described this act by the executive of the party as a complete breach of faith and unacceptable, said he would be consciously involving himself in a fraudulent process if he partakes in the elections thus, his decision to pull out.
“My concerns that the party is not ready to conduct free and fair elections is evident for all of us to see. Taking part in such event will be akin to knowingly drinking from a poisoned calabash. After consulting with my support base nationwide, I have been left with no choice but withdraw from the presidential elections as I cannot contest in an election which is blatantly fraught with irregularities regardless of all my efforts to draw the attention of leadership to same,” he told the press.
Dr. Duffuor, before announcing his decision to withdraw from the contest, discontinued a case he filed at an Accra High Court, seeking to stop the party from holding its presidential and parliamentary primaries on May 13, 2023.
This was after the party held talks with him, during which, he said, an agreement was reached for it to look into the concerns he raised.
But leadership of the party, Dr. Duffuor claimed, breached the agreement, leaving him with no choice but to withdraw as he cannot be guaranteed of fair and credible elections.
