Some irate youth of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)  calling themselves Party Royals, on Friday disrupted the election of a Presiding Member for the Adeiso District Assembly in the Eastern Region.

The angry youth besieged a Pentecost Church where the election was taking place, and allegedly assaulted some Assembly Members for failing to vote for the party’s preferred candidate, Eric Kwesi Mensah, for the position of Presiding Member.

The incumbent Presiding Member, Teye Daniel, is believed to be a sympathizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The Adeiso District Police have begun investigations into the circumstances that led to the disturbances. Adeiso District Police Commander, ASP Abrefi Yeboah, told journalists they are yet to make any arrests.

A member of the New Patriotic Party at the constituency level said the youth had earlier warned the Assembly members of their intent to attack them should they failed to unseat the incumbent presiding member.

“They informed us that they are aware that 24 Assembly Members are loyalists of the NPP, while 15 of the rest are from the NDC, so they expect to get 27 votes for the party’s preferred candidate. They added that, should the preferred candidate fail to attain 24 votes from the 24 Assembly members believed to be from the NPP, they will lock us up in the building and beat us.

“After the voting, both candidates had 19 votes, making it a split, so the electoral officer decided that the house should take a breather for an hour and return to vote for the second time, but this declaration of the votes by the electoral officer did not go down well with the youth who had gathered at the back of the church building.”

The source disclosed that, there was an initial contest at the party level between the candidate the party preferred, and another person who is allegedly being sponsored by the District Chief Executive, Eugene Sackey.

But after fierce competition and engagements at the party level, the DCE’S candidate was disqualified.

This, according to the source, made the youth believe that the DCE was not in favour of the party’s preferred candidate.

“They came in and identified some assembly members they claim did not vote for the party’s preferred candidate, and started slapping them, hitting them, which caused other members to run for their lives. The police officers were outnumbered and overpowered.”