A leading member of the ruling NDC government, Felix Kwakye Ofosu has questioned the NPP’s criticism of Emelia Afi Abenyo’s appointment as Deputy Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, arguing that the party’s own record on public appointments and state institutions should also be examined.
The Minister of State in charge of Government Communications said the NPP’s concerns about political neutrality must be considered alongside what he described as the party’s history of seeking partisan dominance in state institutions.
He argued that the NPP could not raise concerns about the politicisation of institutions without facing questions about its own conduct while in government.
“And when we compare that, we see that what they are doing is not about principle or anything. It’s just pure politics,” Kwakye Ofosu said on TV3’s Keypoints.
He cited the judiciary as one of the institutions where he believed the NPP had exercised significant influence over the years, arguing that appointments to senior positions had contributed to a prolonged period of dominance.
He also recalled cases in which he believed individuals associated with the NDC received harsher treatment than people linked to the NPP.
Among the examples he cited was the punishment imposed on people involved in the Montie Three case, compared with the penalty imposed on members of the NPP-affiliated Delta Force after they stormed a court and disrupted proceedings.
Kwakye Ofosu argued that these cases illustrated what he considered inconsistencies in the treatment of political actors, and said the NPP’s current objections to Abenyo’s appointment should be assessed in that wider context.
He maintained that the government had a right to respond to the opposition’s criticism, even as it acknowledged that concerns about the appointment should not simply be dismissed.
