Ellembele NPP parliamentary candidate’s voter ID card withheld
The Electoral Commission has withheld the new voter card of the New Patriotic Party candidate for Ellembele, Kwasi Bonzoh, over eligibility claims.
“We just received one challenge. Someone has challenged the DCE for Ellembele that he is not a resident of the area. So we have processed the challenge and we cannot give him his card unless they meet at the court [review].
“And provided the challenger is able to prove or if the DCE fails to prove he is a resident, the card would not be given to him,” a registration official at the Awiebo Junction D/A primary school registration centre revealed.
The EC in July withdrew the voter’s ID card of the National Democratic Congress Cape Coast North parliamentary aspirant, Kwamena Minta Nyarku.
Mintah is alleged to have provided false information to the EC when he applied for the card.
It appears his counterpart in Ellembele is in the same trouble.
Mr Bonzoh was forced to relinquish his voter card to the registration officials pending the outcome of a review of the challenge form filled by a resident, Solomon Isaac.
Speaking to the media after the development, the Ellembele parliamentary candidate, who is also serving as the District Chief Executive of Ellembele, explained that the move was merely an indication of fears from the opposition NDC party.
“It is ridiculous that this early morning I received a text message that the NDC was planning to challenge my registration today. I took it with a pinch of salt, only for me to go there today and an NDC agent shows up saying that he does not know me in the area.
“Initially, I thought it was a joke. But he actually challenged my registration to the extent that after my registration, my card was not released to me. I find it very ridiculous because this is a town that I hail from, my father’s hometown.
“My father is alive, and he is not even dead for anybody to say that they don’t even remember my father,” he stressed.
The Ellembele NPP parliamentary candidate is convinced that the opposition party is simply deploying political tactics to try to disenfranchise him ahead of the 2020 elections.
But Mr Bonzoh said he is not worried about the eligibility challenge. He argued that the law would take its own natural cause.
“I am not worried at all. The law says that you either hail from there or reside in that area and in my case, I hail from Awiebo,” he added.
He further indicated that his previous registration was done in his mother’s hometown in the same constituency. But this was the first time he chose to register at his father’s hometown.
According to him, he still has a right to register in his father’s hometown.
Following the turn of events, the registration officials for the Awiebo centre, have decided to hold onto the card till issues with the challenge had been settled.
The challenger has, however, justified his reasons for filling the challenge claim.
“We heard that the DCE was coming to register here and I don’t know that the DCE is from this place. For the past years of staying here, I have never seen him here or voting here. So how come he is now coming to register here.”
Kwasi Bonzoh has since 2012 contested the Parliamentary election in the constituency. This year, he faces Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah for the third consecutive time come December 7.