Member of Parliament for Wa West Constituency and Former Police officer, Peter Lanchene Toobu has explained the structures of the National Democratic Congress which according to him must be respected accordingly.

In a conversation with Sompa Tv, Honorable Peter Toobu explained that the structures of the party consist of the National Executive Council (NEC), Functional Executive Council (FEC), Regional Executive Committee, Constituency Executive Committee, and Branch Executive Committee, the Chief Executive Officer is the general secretary while the leader of the party is the chairman.

He said based on the structures of the party, any letter with the signatories of both the chairman and the general secretary is considered legit and should be respected.

According to him, in party politics, two rules come to play and must be respected to avoid any problems.

“In my experience as a politician, there are two rules in party politics that must be respected to avoid any problems, rule number one says the party is always right and rule number two says if you are a member of the party and you feel you are right “refer to rule number one” so if there's a decision from the leadership, you can only disagree but cannot go contrary,” he said.

He said party supporters angered by the decision of the party hierarchy have the right to file for a review.

Explaining the minority caucus in parliament's stand on the party's decision, he said, there's no crack s in the caucus in parliament but rather they feel that the normal process was not followed.

“It has never happened since 1993 that a caucus in parliament chooses a leader, it has always been the party, what we (Minority Caucus in Parliament) feel is that the process by which the party hierarchy used in changing leadership was properly not communicated. We want to understand it well so that we could follow the rules and regulations governing it, but this is a situation where there were no outlined rules and regulations or guidelines, we feel that it's not transparent but that doesn't mean it's not the best way to go” he said.

He debunked an alleged division among the NDC caucus in parliament because of the decision by the party leadership.

According to the former security personnel, there's no division among them and the caucus is fully in support of the party decision but only asking for transparency and a clear process.

“All the 137 members of parliament for the NDC are fully in support of the party decision, there's no division among us, but we are calling for transparency so that we could all put on records the process of choosing caucus leaders going forward, to avert any future happenings’ he added.

He craves the party faithful to accept the decision by the national executive council however he added that the caucus wants to have a role to play as a strong wing of the party.

“Youth elects a youth organizer, women elect women organizer, as a strong wing of the party in parliament, we want to have a role to play in choosing our leaders and that role should be very transparent, the party headquarters together with the wing in parliament should come together and have a clear roadmap in choosing caucus leaders, that's all we are fighting for” he concluded.

Source//sompaonline.com//Eric Murphy Asare