The special national delegates conference of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) ended in Accra last Saturday, with the party taking a giant step to amend its constitution to deepen grass-roots participation in the selection of its national, regional and constituency officers, as well as its presidential candidate.
By the amendment, which received a loudest voice vote, the party has now decided to limit its presidential aspirants to five instead of the previous situation which allowed as many presidential aspirants as possible.
With the amendment, more than 100,000 party members from polling stations throughout the country to the national chairman will now vote to elect the party’s presidential candidate in future national delegate congresses.
Surprisingly, the most controversial of all the proposed amendment — the widening of the electoral college for the selection of the presidential candidate — which had prior to the conference generated a lot of passion, interest and acrimony among various members and leaders of the party, rather received the loudest voice vote.
The conference, which was predicted to be acrimonious and could cause serious cracks within the party, passed off peacefully.
Mr Amin Anta, a former DCE, who took the microphone to express a dissent view on some of the amendments, was greeted with boos and insults and had to be whisked from the podium.
That was because some people who opposed his assertion had started surging forward towards him, with others casting invectives and insults and issuing threats at him.
At the Accra Trade Fair Centre where the conference took place, all the amendments that were agreed or disagreed on were done by voice vote. This rendered redundant the Electoral Commission (EC) officers who came around to conduct the voting .
With the amendment, the NPP has a two-stage procedure for the selection of its presidential aspirant. First, a special electoral college will be constituted to vote and select five persons where there are more than five aspirants at the close of the nominations for the position of presidential candidate.
The special electoral college shall comprise the national council, national executive committee, regional executive officers, national council of elders, MPs, three representatives each of special organs of the party, past national officers, 10 representatives of external branches, all founder members during the registration of the party at the EC and all NPP card-bearing ministers and district chief executives if the party is in government.
The second stage of the selection process of presidential candidate shall include the national council, the executive committee, the regional executive committees, the constituency executive officers, the electoral area co-ordinators, the five polling station executive officers in each constituency, national council of elders, all MPs, three representatives of each special organ of the party, past national officers and three representatives from each external branch to vote on the five aspirants to select the final presidential candidate.
Other members of the body to select the final presidential candidate are all existing founder members during the registration of the party at the EC, 15 patrons, one TESCON representative from each recognised tertiary institution and all NPP card-bearing ministers if the party is in power.
The opening session of the well-attended conference attracted members of the diplomatic corps including country representatives from the US, China, Japan and Cuba.
Solidarity messages were read by representatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the People’s National Convention (PNC), the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) and the Convention People’s Party (CPP).
Other NPP dignitaries who participated in the conference included former President John Agyekum Kufuor and former Vice-President Alhaji Aliu Mahama, Mr Harona Esseku, a former party chairman; Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the 2008 presidential candidate of the NPP; Mr Alan Kyerematen, a leading member of the party; other former national executive members, ex-ministers of state and district chief executive, as well as party activists.
Addressing the opening session of the conference, the National Chairman of the party, Mr Mac Manu, said most of the proposed amendments reflected the wishes, desires and expectations of the members of the party.
He also explained that in 2006, the Constitutional and Legal Committee of the party under the chairmanship of the late Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, recommended the need to re-examine certain provisions of the party’s constitution.
“Therefore, some of the proposals to be considered by this conference predates the party’s presidential and parliamentary nominations for the 2008 general election. This is not denying the fact that effective grass-roots organisation contributed immensely to our successes in the 2000 and 2004 elections,” he said.
Buttressing his support for the amendment, Mr Mac Manu explained that even the NDC after losing the 2000 and 2004 elections, undertook an exercise to re-organise, re-brand and amend certain provisions of its constitution.
He again argued that the Conservative Party of UK on August 4, 2009, elected Sarah Wollaston as its candidate for Totnes through an open primary involving 16,000 interested voters.
Hitherto, he said, the power of selection had been in the hands of a few local party activists.
According to Mr Mac Manu, many reasons were assigned for the NPP’s inability to retain power in 2008, culminating in calling for heads to roll including his (Mac Manu) but added that elections were either won or lost.
"Certainly, mistakes were made by the leadership and membership across all levels of our party but this is not the time for finger pointing,” he stated.
He said it was imperative that the party learnt lessons from both remote and recent experiences to serve as a guide in reshaping and fine tuning its structures and conduct in readiness for the next general election and all other elections.
For his part, former President Kufuor said, “How we conduct our affairs today, therefore, will be the signal to the world for our readiness to recapture the power the party lost to the NDC in 2008."
He expressed worry that some people including himself who had different views from others had been vilified “just for saying our minds. We should not give room for discontent, rancour and for division within our ranks”.
He disputed claims that he had a faction in the party and added that he was a staunch NPP member and would remain like that forever.
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