Mr. Stephen Ayensu Ntim, a leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who lost the national chairmanship race narrowly to Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, has expressed regret over certain developments that occurred during the party's national conference held in Kumasi on Saturday.

According to him, there were a lot of irregularities, with regards to the electoral processes, but was not prepared to divulge them through the media. Speaking to this paper in an interview yesterday, the former first vice national chairman of the party, insisted that he needs to respect the structures of the party, when quizzed to throw more light on his reservations, which caused his defeat.

According to him, he would have voiced out the issue when he spoke on the various stations yesterday, if he wanted to do so. "Allow me some privacy. My concerns would be fully addressed through the appropriate channels; any attempt to speak to the media would belabour the point," he stressed.

Meanwhile, signals picked from the ground indicate that Mr. Ntim, who came second in Saturday's election by garnering 1,804 votes as against Jake's 2,030, believes that there were some ballot papers which were to go in his favour and that if such ballot papers were duly counted, the story would have been different.

Furthermore, some defeated candidates have expressed a lot of sentiments over the elections, but have decided to resort to the channels of the party for redress. "I have decided not to say anything for now. At the appropriate time, I shall speak, but if the delegates think that they have voted for the right people to lead us to victory in 2012, so be it. We shall work hard to unseat the NDC," a defeated candidate told this paper yesterday.

Another defeated candidate, who raised concerns, was Dr. Wereko Brobby. According to him, some party delegates were given monies to vote in a particular direction, which he condemned, adding that his inability to coerce the delegates with money resulted in his defeat.

Speaking on Joy FM yesterday, he blamed his poor performance in Kumasi on his sticking to the principles of non-corruptibility of the electoral process.

He alleged that while other competitors gave delegates money for transportation, he refused to do so, mainly on principle, because the NPP cannot accuse the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of monetising politics, while resorting to the same tricks and political chicanery.

The Chief Executive of the erstwhile Ghana@50 Secretariat said he only provided over 2,000 delegates with breakfast at his residence in Kumasi, and wondered why despite the unsolicited pledge for support by these delegates, he lost miserably.

He touted his commitment to vigorously fighting corruption in the country.

"I have been mounting a campaign on what I call PG3 - public good, private greed, poor Ghana. People set out to serve the public good, but they pursue their private greed, and Ghana is the poorer for it," myjoyonline.com quoted him as saying.