Posted to the web 28 March 2008
Charles Takyi-Boadu
Having declared her intentions not to run for re-election as Member of Parliament for the Ablekuma-South constituency in the upcoming elections, the seat of the incumbent MP, Theresa Amerley Tagoe is up for grasp, by not only members of her own party but the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Currently, three persons including the likes of ace comedian and media practitioner, Fritz Baffour of the NDC, Greater Accra Regional Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Ben Brown and a private legal practitioner, lawyer Kojo Smith have shown their interest in running for the almost-vacant position.
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Though all the political parties have indicated their preparedness to field candidates to contest for the seat, which is obviously one of the keenly contested seats in the Greater Accra region, the NDC appears to be the only party, which has elected its candidate, in the person of Fritz Baffour.
At a constituency primary recently, Baffour came tops when he polled 142 out of the total of 309 votes cast, as against his opponents, Wisdom Dodoo, a former Assemblyman for Korle Gonno and Youth Organizer, with 136 votes, and Hubert Vanderpuye with 31 votes.
Long before Ben Brown and Kojo Smith go into what is likely to be a straight fight between the two to determine who picks up the NPP candidature, the candidate for the opposition party, Fritz Baffour has intensified his campaign to annex the seat.
He has already started meeting residents of the constituency with his ground troops selling his ideas to canvass for votes on daily basis. With the warm welcome that he often receives on his campaign trails, Fritz is confident to win the seat as a piece of cake for his party, the NDC.
Meanwhile, the NPP is struggling to elect a probable candidate among the two contestants to go into the election.
The Ablekuma-South NPP has been brewing with trouble for the last couple of months.
The rift which is between the incumbent Member of Parliament for the area, Theresa Naa Amerley Tagoe and some constituency executives of the party has left the NPP divided in Ablekuma-South, creating two factions among the members.
This has resulted in a situation where constituency meetings are no more held at its original place. Instead, the constituency office has been moved to a new venue whilst the MP uses the old office as a meeting place with her constituents who bring their problems and concerns to her.
It seem to be creating a problem for the two aspirants since each of them belongs to one of the camps. Whilst a section of the members support Kojo Smith's candidature due to his link with the incumbent MP, majority of the executives and other members of the party support the course of Ben Brown.
Mr. Brown is banking his hopes on his contributions to the party over the years and what he continuous to be doing for the party, to win the constituency primary.
He believes there is reward in hard-work, hence the delegates would crown his tireless efforts by electing him.
Though he admitted that the race was hectic, Mr. Smith believes that the 140 or so delegates would see him through since according to him, he already has the support of half of them, by virtue of his association with Amerley Tagoe.
The troubles of the Ablekuma-South NPP began somewhere last year when one of its executive meetings was virtually turned into a boxing arena.
This resulted in a situation where the constituency executives and the incumbent MP, Theresa Tagoe turned to be at pole position.
Since then, the party has remained divided between two factions in the constituency.
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