The simmering internal crisis within the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Constituency has escalated sharply, with eight party members filing an application at the High Court seeking an interlocutory injunction to halt the ongoing vetting of aspirants and the conduct of polling station elections in the constituency.
The plaintiffs, Sam Nathaniel Andoh, Samuel Kwaw Blay, Musah Abdulai, Charlotte Ghansah, Francis Ntsiful, Eric Bonney, Juliana Eshun and Memunatu Abubakar Saddick, are asking the court to freeze all election-related activities pending determination of the case.
Named as defendants in the motion on notice are the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Western Regional Chairman Francis Ndede Siah, Tarkwa-Nsuaem Constituency Chairman Benjamin Assabill, Constituency Secretary Fuseini Amadu and the NPP’s Western Regional Representative for the constituency, Anthony Aidoo.
The application asks the court to prevent the defendants from vetting or purporting to vet any aspirant, conducting or purporting to conduct polling station elections, or undertaking any related activity in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Constituency.
The legal action marks the latest and most serious escalation of a dispute that has destabilised one of the NPP’s historically important constituencies in the Western Region. As NewsGhana previously reported, constituency executives boycotted the inauguration of the Polling Station Elections Committee and submitted a petition to party leadership alleging procedural violations in its formation. Mass disqualifications during the vetting exercise then deepened the crisis further, with hundreds of members accusing party officials of arbitrarily excluding aspirants on grounds including being seen dancing to music associated with the National Democratic Congress (NDC), operating businesses near NDC-branded signage, or backing parliamentary hopefuls not aligned with influential local figures.
The eight plaintiffs contend that the processes being pursued do not comply with the party’s own guidelines and are being manipulated to favour certain individuals. The High Court has not yet ruled on the application.
The dispute unfolds against a painful political backdrop. The NPP lost the Tarkwa-Nsuaem parliamentary seat in the 2024 general elections for the first time since 1996, by a margin of nearly 16,000 votes, with many members attributing that defeat partly to internal divisions. Several aggrieved members have since warned that failure to resolve the current tensions could further damage the party’s prospects in the constituency.
