A Senior Political Science Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo, has asked the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to adopt a ‘One Man One Vote’ (OMOV) system for electing a successor of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as the party’s flagbearer going into the 2024 elections.

He explained that the OMOV principle if adopted by the party stands to give it the opportunity to elect a flag bearer in a manner that would deepen its internal democracy and ensure popular acceptance as well as ownership of whoever emerges as the party’s presidential candidate.

According to Professor Gyampo, “the NPP does not need to only adopt the OMOV principle but requires a customised version that will ensure that not less than six million of its members get to decide who the party’s next flag bearer becomes.

“As we are all aware, President Akufo-Addo completes his second term of office in 2024 and as the democratic principles enshrined in our Constitution determines, the NPP will have to find his replacement.

“Already, people have started an open and surreptitious campaign in a manner that seems to violate the party’s rule that, such activities can only be undertaken in the third year of the government when the party is in power.

“The rationale for this directive in the NPPs constitution, which many find problematic, will be interrogated soon and a case made for the constitutional amendment but for now, the focus is to broadly contribute to the discourse on how best the NPP can set a pace in selecting a flag bearer to replace President Akufo-Addo in a manner that will deepen its internal democracy,” Prof. Gyampo noted.

He noted that the situation would also ensure popular acceptance as well as ownership of whoever emerged as the party’s presidential candidate adding that most of the NPPs stalwarts and the majority of its following, would like to see the party as one of Africa’s most innovative political parties.

Prof. Gyampo indicated that having championed a number of initiatives to strengthen its own internal democracies, and to some extent, national electoral processes since its inception the leadership of the party would make an indelible mark in the annals of Ghana politics after the replacement of President Akufo-Addo.