The National Council of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has dismissed a petition put forward by nine presidential candidates. The petition sought to request that the party’s upcoming election on August 26 be centralized.
With the exception of Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the nine flagbearer hopefuls contended that a centralized election process would be more efficient and transparent.
Citing concerns over the restrictive voting framework, which would only permit 900 delegates to cast their ballots at the regional level, they argued that having a centralized process would ensure a more inclusive and democratic electoral mechanism for the party’s leadership election.
However, the National Council at a crunch meeting on Thursday, July 20, 2023, rejected the petition resolving to implement what is in the party’s constitution.
In a media address, General Secretary of the NPP, Justin Koduah, reaffirmed the party’s commitment to proceed with its scheduled decentralized election. The NPP is set to reduce the number of presidential aspirants from 10 to five on August 26th, a step mandated by the party’s constitution.
The party says a new register will be needed for the register since some of the delegates had passed.
Justin Koduah had earlier assured that the new register will be out by the end of the week.
“We are in the final stage of doing the compilation. Basically, we are not going to exceed 1000 so between 900 and 1000 delegates will form the special electoral college.”
“Some of the founding members have died, so we have to take their names out. We also have to look at past national officers. I am sure before the week ends we should have the final list for the special delegates’ election,” he stated.
