Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has vehemently debunked speculations that he has quit partisan politics, stressing that he is still into politics and so the rumour should stop.

Rumours making the rounds in the political arena, particularly in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional capital, since Sunday suggested that the ex- Ghanaian leader had parted ways with politics in the country.

The allegation became rife when the former president was visibly miss­ing in action during the New Patriotic Party's (NPPs) Special Delegates' Congress to prune the number of the party's presidential candidates from seven to five.

Spokesperson to the former presi­dent, Frank Agyekum, has stated emphatically that his boss has not resigned from active politics, stating that Mr. Kufuor did not vote on Sun­day for strategic reasons.

He posited that the ex-president had not resigned from NPP's internal politics, explaining that his decision not to vote at the party's recent con­gress was meant to help douse the current tension and rancour in the elephant family.

Mr. Kufuor would have voted at the Engineering Auditorium at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Sci­ence and Technology (KNUST), where the Ashanti Regional delegates cast their ballots.

Throwing more light on Mr. Kufuor's action, Mr. Agyekum stated that the former was not happy about the seeming infighting in the party and so "as a statesman and elder of the NPP, he decided not to vote to help restore peace in the party."

He said Mr. Kufuor wanted to avert a situation whereby people would accuse him of throwing his support for one of the seven candi­dates, which could further spark trou­ble in the party, hence his decision not to vote.

Mr. Kufuor, he said, therefore opted to stay out of the NPP polls and rather offer his unflinching support for the candidates that would be eventually elected by the party's dele­gates.