The long-awaited election of Presiding Member for the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) came off but the process ended in fisticuffs.
Assembly members believed to belong to the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) took entrenched positions in the vote.
The two contestants for the position of PM, Nana Kofi Senya – perceived to be an NPP loyalist and Nana Adumhene, the NDC favourite failed to secure the two-thirds majority votes required by the law to win.
After five rounds of voting ended in a stalemate, the Assembly members abandoned the process of voting.
The election which was supervised by the Deputy Ashanti Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), Lawrence Sarpong, proceeded peacefully until one assembly member, suspecting the process was being tampered with, demanded to know from the EC official, Mr. Sarpong, how many ballot papers had been printed.
This didn’t go down well with a member of the governing NDC who confronted him. A brawl broke out.
Joy News’ Nurudeen Mohammed reports that while some members were trying to cool tempers down, others received heavy knocks from their opponents.
It took the timely intervention of the police to restore peace at the event.
After five rounds of voting, Nana Kofi Senya consistently obtained 68 votes while Nana Adjei Bafour Kesse IV managed with 66 votes. None of them obtained the required 96 votes the be elected PM.
There was no consensus on when to hold the next round of voting.
The election has been postponed indefinitely to allow the regional minister to intervene.
Source :www.myjoyonline.com
