NPP-Usa Proposes For Flagbearership Race

USA branch of the New Patriotic Party has proposed that every card-bearing member of the party must be allowed to vote in choosing the people who lead the party and that the presidential candidate must be elected by a simple majority. They are also calling for the presidential candidate to be chosen early to allow more time for campaigning.

The memorandum, dated February 27, reads, “Ideally, all positions in the party should be subject to the one-member, one- vote principle. However, due to cost and other practical considerations, we recommend a phase-in process. In the immediate future, the one-member, one vote could be applied to selected positions at the Polling Station (Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer), The National Chairperson and the General Secretary, Parliamentary Candidates and Presidential Candidates.”

The party is currently considering proposals to reform its constitution. The consensus is certainly around a radical expansion of the electoral college, but to what extend remains the sticky point.

Nana Attobrah of the Danquah Institute has welcomed the one-member one vote proposal, but warns that it should be aggregated in order not to make votes from the smaller regions swallowed by the bigger regions.

“This may mean that you either maintain the 10 delegates or larger number per constituency who shall vote not like free agents but based on the percentage of votes received by candidates at the constituency, after every member’s vote is counted,” Nana Attobrah argues.

He also recommends active membership of at least one year before a party member can be eligible to vote. “This can avoid the situation where activists of other parties pick up membership for mischief purposes.”

The NPP-USA group believes it will be more effective to hold the presidential primary over a 4 to 6 week period that allows the candidates to concentrate their efforts.

“To effectuate this, we believe it will be necessary to hold Regional primaries. For instance, one week could be set aside for the northern regions; followed by the coastal regions, followed by the interior regions, etc,” they argue.

The memo further states, “We believe that the mode of selecting the National Executive Officers, and in particular the Chairperson and the General Secretary, must be reformed to make it more transparent as well as enable greater Member participation in the selection process.”

One way to improve the current system and make it more directly democratic is for the party to hold elections (at which all qualified members shall have the right to vote) to elect National Executive Officers, they argue. A certain number of representatives can be assigned per constituency who shall be bound to cast votes in accordance with the percentage of the results from their constituency on a winner take all principle.

That way, the National Executive Officers will be selected indirectly by the grassroots membership, and the National Congress would become a mere coronation ceremony, as the representative would vote in accordance with their prior commitments made at the Special Constituency-level Representative conference.

This is the same methodology they are proposing to the Presidential primary, which shall aggregate at the constituency level.

To avoid confusion and doubt, there shall be no proportional allocation of Representatives. Whoever emerges as the number one by a simple majority carries the entire number of Representatives.

The USA branch of the NPP is also calling for all registered and paid up international members to be entitled to vote in the Presidential primaries. Coordination should be effected through each international branch’s national executives.

“Like all constituencies, the register of members shall be available online (secured). Each international branch will appoint an Electoral Commission to regulate its elections, including the use of mail and/or online balloting,” the memo reads.

They are calling for each international country to be treated as a Constituency, with a given number of polling stations, (chapters), then all the requirements of Ghana’s Constituencies will apply equally. This will mean that international branches can vote in all one-member, one vote elections. Those who know their parliamentary constituencies can participate as well. All members of the Executives of International branches shall be deemed Representatives for the purpose of attending National Conventions in Ghana.

The NPP-USA document was its Ad Hoc Constitutional Review Committee made up of the following Members: Kofi A. Boateng (Chairman); Prof. S. Kwaku Asare (Principal Author); Prof. H. Kwasi Prempeh, Dr. Agyenim Boateng; Dr. Michael Baffoe (Canada); Kwabena Manu; Stephen Oduro.