The Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the NPP, Mr. Sammy Crabbe says the acclamation of Nana Akomea as Okai Koi South Parliamentary candidate for this year’s election is null and void. According to him, the process of acclamation clearly violated the party’s constitution. “I know that we have procedures in this party, we have a constitution which governs the way we conduct ourselves including the selection of parliamentary candidates” he said. Quoting Article 6 (7) (i) of the constitution, Mr. Crabbe said the chairman of the constituency is mandated to convene constituency executive committee meetings. This committee he noted calls extra ordinary delegates conferences to select a parliamentary candidate. But the meeting that acclaimed Nana Akomea was not convened by the committee, he stated. “I believe that what happened was illegal and that any decision coming out of what happened is null and void”. The Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment was acclaimed on Sunday to contest Okai Koi South Constituency seat on the party’s ticket. That followed the disqualification of his only contender Ms. Vicky Bright on the basis that she had not nurtured the constituency. But that acclamation, Mr. Crabbe says was illegal and therefore null and void. His position was upheld by the constituency chairman of the party, Mr. Ransford Adjei. He told Joy News that he was not aware there was an acclamation ceremony in the constituency. Mr. Adjei said he had received a letter from the regional secretariat of the party directing him to organise an extra ordinary delegate conference to select a parliamentary candidate for the constituency for the December elections. He said he was surprised to hear that there was a ceremony on Sunday to confirm the incumbent MP, Nana Akomea. “The process was definitely flawed”, he emphasised. The constituency chairman said he will convene a delegates’ conference on June 4, as planned to select a candidate. Meanwhile the National Chairman of the NPP, Mr. Peter Mac Manu says there was nothing wrong with the process. For him the disqualification of Ms Bright was right since quite a number of the executives of the party had said they did not know her. His reaction however attracted the fury of over fifty polling station chairmen in the constituency who have threatened to defect to the opposition NDC. They accused Mr. Mac Manu of creating confusion in the party. The process of selecting parliamentary candidates for the party has been characterised by acrimony and violence in some cases. That according to a Political Science lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology is a test of the internal democratic credentials of the NPP. He stressed the need for the party to do damage control since the internal democracy of political parties affected the democracy of the country in general. Story by Malik Abass Daabu