With or without the supervision of the Electoral Commission (EC), the National Democratic Congress (NDC) says it will go ahead with today's planned presidential primaries.
The EC following an injunction suit filed by a presidential candidate aspirant, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, pulled out of the exercise for fear of contempt.
The case was struck out after Dr Duffuor withdrew same but it is unclear if the EC would be able to oversee the polls as it has to deplore election materials across 420 polling centres in 275 constituencies.
Addressing journalists at a press conference in Accra yesterday, General Secretary of the NDC, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, said the party had readied itself to conduct the polls if the EC failed to.
"The Functional Executive Committee of the party, on behalf of the National Executives Committee, has passed a resolution that if for any reason the EC is unable (today) to supervise the elections, the Election Directorate of the NDC across all levels will take full charge of that process," Mr Kwetey stated.
Throwing more light on the matter, National Chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, noted that the party was ready to assist the EC to deplore materials if need be.
"When we had this legal challenge, we were informed by the Commission that because of the challenge, they were unable to proceed with the conduct of the elections.
"We accepted it and promised to deal with all the legal challenges. We have since dealt with the legal challenges and all the obligations and the timelines (have been met). The only thing that stood to be affected by this delay is the transportation of electoral materials.
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"We have met them after the court issues and we have assured each other that wherever they run into difficulty about the transportation of electoral material, we are available to deploy our emergency response team to help them.
"So far, they have not given us a cause to worry that they are unable to distribute the election materials so we are looking forward to them to perform their obligation under the agreement we have entered with them ," Mr Nketia enumerated.
According to him, internal elections to elect the presidential and parliamentary primaries remain the responsibility of the NDC and that everything legal would be done to live up to that responsibility.
"We sought to involve the EC because we believe that it is much more credible to involve neutral parties in such issues."
In this regard, Mr Nketia indicated that they reserve the right to do so if the services of the neutral arbiter becomes unavailable.
