NPP kick-starts campaign

THE New Patriotic Party (NPP) will kick-start its campaign for Election 2008 this Sunday with a mammoth rally at Kasoa where Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the flag bearer of the party, and the 230 parliamentary aspirants will be introduced to the expected gathering.
At the rally, President J.A. Kufuor will formally join the campaign team of Nana Akufo-Addo. At the same time the President is expected to introduce the flag bearer as his heir apparent.
Dubbed “Massive and Issue-Based Onslaught”, the campaign will be given added impetus each week with the introduction of other activities, while the flag bearer and the party executive criss-cross the country, in addition.
Briefing the media in Accra, the National Organiser of the NPP, Mr Lord Commey, said the sustained campaign, which would begin with the introduction of the party’s flag bearer at Kasoa, would also bring together all the 15 people who contested the flagbearership race of the party at its December congress.
He said a week after the Kasoa launch, the flag bearer would attend a gospel concert on July 21 and 22, to be followed the following week by the launch of the party’s 16th anniversary throughout the country. The real anniversary would take place the following week.
Mr Commey said that would also be followed by activities preceding the party’s national delegates conference scheduled for the first week of August.
At the conference, the party’s manifesto would be laid before the delegates for acceptance, while at the same time the running mate of Nana Akufo-Addo would be introduced.
Mr Commey said in all these activities, the party would be coming up with issues, especially the good policies and programmes that the party would implement when given the mandate, and also explain why the NPP remained the best party for the nation.
He said just after the congress, the party would roll out another plan for the next month’s activities and that would be sustained till election day.
Regarding constituencies whose primaries had ended in stalemates, with others resulting in violence, Mr Commey attributed the development to the high interest the party faithful had in the party but condemned the violent incidents.
He said many of the problems had cropped up because the party faithful at the grass roots felt short-changed by certain decisions taken by the constituency and regional executive members.
That, he said, had made them to petition the national headquarters or resort to demonstrations.
He explained that the vetting committee had finished with its work at Effia-Kwesimintsim and the party would announce its decision within the week.
Mr Commey said concerning Bole-Bamboi, the party was studying the various petitions and would make a final determination within this month.
On Suhum, he said the party had had enough of the voting, which had all ended in a tie, and that it had proposed other means of amicably selecting a compromise candidate.