About 15,000 aspirants are contesting constituency executive posts this weekend, but a High Court injunction has put one Oti Region race in doubt.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), Ghana's governing party, is holding constituency executive elections across all 276 constituencies this weekend, Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25, 2026.
The exercise is part of a reorganisation of party structures from the branch level upwards, ahead of the 2028 general elections.
The numbers
Party election officials say about 15,000 aspirants are in the race for various positions. Those include constituency chairman and vice-chairman, secretary, treasurer, organiser and deputy organiser, communications officer, women's organiser and youth organiser.
The winners will run party business at the local level: organising activities, recruiting and mobilising members, managing constituency structures and carrying party programmes into communities.
For Ghanaians following politics from the United States, this is the layer of the party that usually decides how campaigns are run on the ground long before a presidential ticket is settled. Constituency executives also form part of the base from which internal party contests are shaped.
The Nkwanta North dispute
The one unsettled case is Nkwanta North in the Oti Region. The Ghana Report reports that the High Court in Dambai issued an interlocutory injunction barring the NDC from holding the election in that constituency.
An interlocutory injunction is a temporary court order that stops an action while a case is still being heard.
The order also stops the party from using or relying on a register of branch executives that was put together after branch elections held in June and July 2026. Branch executives usually form the voting body in constituency elections, so a disputed register goes to the heart of who is allowed to vote.
Despite the order, the party says it is pressing ahead. Mahdi Jibrill, the NDC's Acting Director of IT and Elections, told Eyewitness News on Thursday, October 22, that the party had not been formally served.
"Nobody has served us," he said, adding that the party headquarters and the General Secretary were running the constituency's election and that, as far as the party's records showed, no injunction applied to it.
Under Ghanaian court practice, a party that has not been served may argue it is not yet bound by an order. But proceeding where an injunction exists can expose a party to contempt proceedings if the court finds it had notice.
Who is involved
The Electoral Commission (EC), the state body that runs public elections, is working with the party's internal election committees on the exercise. The Ghana Police Service is expected to provide security at voting centres.
As of the start of the weekend, the position in Nkwanta North remained unresolved, with the party insisting the vote would go on.
