Information available to the New Statesman indicates that Charles Wereko-Brobby, who has been suspended for two years as a member of the New Patriotic Party, indicated to the party’s Disciplinary Committee that he had been aware of a conspiracy between the National Democratic Congress and the Electoral Commission to rig the December 2012 general elections.
The National Executive Committee of the NPP last Friday slapped a two-year ban on Dr Wereko-Brobby for exhibiting behaviour that put the party’s image into disrepute.
He was found guilty of breaching Article 3d of the party’s constitution which enjoins members to “protect and promote the good name of the party” and “abide by and publicly uphold the decisions of the party.”
Dr Wereko-Brobby had published two articles in the media making uncomplimentary comments about the NPP in respect of the ongoing 2012 presidential election petition at the Supreme Court.
“Is There a Case for the Stolen Verdict 3?” was the first article, in which he condemned the party’s decision to challenge the outcome of the December 2012 presidential election in court.
The second article, “On The Face Of the Pink Sheet & at the Heart of the Matter”, sought to ridicule the party’s star witness in the election petition case, Mamamudu Bawumia, describing him as clueless, while commending the star witness of the NDC and John Dramani Mahama, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, describing him as masterful.
According to the report submitted by the Disciplinary Committee to the National Executive Committee of the NPP, Dr Wereko-Brobby “said he kept warning the Party about the National Democratic Party’s (NDC’s) and the Electoral Commission’s (EC’s) plans to rig the elections and the need for Party Agents to be trained and to be vigilant on Election Day.”
The report adds that leader of the defunct United Ghana Movement “cited the instance of delay in the supply of the Voters/Electoral Register to political parties by the EC” as part of the strategy to prosecute the rigging plan.
Dr Wereko-Brobby is reported by the NPP’s Disciplinary Committee to have said that even though he brought the issue to the attention of the National Chairman, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, no action was taken to avert the plan.
“To him, the NPP lost the elections due to lack of vigilance, hence the release of the statements,” the report says, adding: “He said people had done and said worse things so he could not understand why he had been brought before the Committee.”
With respect to the ongoing election petition at the Supreme Court, Dr Wereko-Brobby answered in the affirmative when he was asked by the Committee “whether he was aware that the National Council of the Party met at Alisa Hotel and after deliberations took a decision to go to Court…as against taking to the streets.”
“On his first statement, Dr Wereko-Brobby admitted that he did not act properly and that he published the statement in the heat of passion, in January immediately after the declaration of the election results,” the report states.
He, however, insisted he did not “consider the second statement as an attack on the person of Dr Bawumia, neither was it an attack on the Party” and asked the Committee “to differentiate an attack on Dr Bawumia from an attack on his evidence in court.”
Dr Wereko-Brobby further indicated that “he did not mean to undermine the Party by the publications but was expressing his views in accordance with the democratic traditions of the Party.”
When asked why he felt it was not necessary to make his views known to the party hierarchy instead of publishing it in the media, “his response was that he copied the Deputy Communications Director, Perry Okudzeto, on all the statements at the time he released them to the press and that his had been his style of communicating his views since 1992
Source: thestatesmanonline
