NPP HOLD CRUNCH MEETING

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is expected to hold a crunch National Council meeting today to deliberate on matters affecting the party in recent times.

High on the agenda would be a key decision to be taken over the venue for the party’s impending national conference to select national executives, slated for March 1.

Currently, the party appears divided over whether to centralize or decentralize the venue for the all-important exercise and the intense debate on the issue is having a spillover effect on who is doing the right thing.

Martin Agyei-Mensah Korsah, NPP Direction of Elections confirmed the National Council meeting saying “they are going to deliberate on a number of issues. Most likely on the table will be discussion about how we conduct this national executive’s election.”

NEC Decision

“The National Executive Committee which is a bit lower than the National Council decided that we hold elections across the country in all the 10 regions after considering all issues involved.

He said “why would the underlining factors be money? If the decision would change, the question would be can we raise GH¢1.2million (¢12 billion) to run this election at one location?”

He added “or can we use far less amount for the same exercise but spread across the regions?”

NPP Broke

Mr. Agyei-Mensah Korsah said “it is never true that the NPP is broke. I reject that assertion completely. The debate now is how we use our money,” adding “in all the elections we have done from constituency to regional level, the NPP did not go to borrow money for the exercises.”

“So far per the party’s calculation it will cost us GH¢1.2million for a centralized exercise whereas decentralization will cost us GH¢250,000 (¢2.5billion) for a similar exercise. All of them are expected to give us similar results,” he said.

“The decentralization idea is cost effective. It will save us money,” he emphasized.

Dirty Linen

According to Mr. Agyei-Mensah, “some members of our party have been in the public and in the media criticizing this view and creating the impression as though we are unable to decide where we hold our election. That issue is still lingering on and the meeting will deal with that conclusively.”

He said the National Elections Committee was going on as scheduled to organize elections and said nothing had changed so far.

Decentralized Option

“However if tomorrow National Council decides that rather than hold it across 10 regions of the country, we should centralize it, the National Elections Committee will have absolutely no problem at all…we will go ahead and do it.

“Until any decision is taken we are going ahead to organize elections in all 11 polling centres across the country. Thus 10 regions and one at the NPP headquarters.”

“At the NPP headquarters, national officers and  members within the external branch of the party who are so far 192 are expected to vote. Each external branch is expected to produce 12 delegates. There are also those who would apply for proxy votes. All of these people would be voting at the NPP headquarters.”

“So there would be one centre at the party’s headquarters and all the others would be at the 10 regional capitals.”

Constitutional Infringement

When asked if the party’s constitution mandates NEC to decentralize the elections, he said “the constitution does not also ask us to go and centralize the process.”

“Indeed, Article 17 of the NPP constitution gives the national executives the power to put out rules and regulations for the implementation of that constitution and running of the party at all levels.”

“What the NPP constitution says is that there shall be an extraordinary annual delegate’s conference and that conference would see the National Chairman and Treasurer coming to address party delegates on the state of the party,” he said.

“The General Secretary may be directed to file returns of the party with the Electoral Commission and any other matters that would arise,” he added.

2011 & 2013 No Show

“It is instructive to note that in 2011, NEC with National Council waived the holding of the annual delegate’s conference.

In 2013, because we were in the Supreme Court, the same body waived annual delegate’s conference and nobody raised any issue with those decisions.”

“Why were there no noise like we are hearing today? Somebody ought to be answering,” he quizzed.

He said that “all that the constitution says is that do an annual delegate’s conference. As per our programme as National Elections Committee, the National Executives would be featuring with their reports.”

“The extent of discussion in fulfilling that constitutional condition is that do we hold the annual delegate’s conference by a televised event or record it and play the audio to delegate’s preceding the voting.”

“Or do we put it in the form of a brochure for delegates to read? Their regional equivalents could read them on their behalf.”

He said that it would not be out of place to follow that process because “in the end that constitutional obligation of an annual delegate’s conference would be met.”

“The most important condition set by the party’s constitution is to ensure that an annual delegate’s conference is done. It does not decide which mode it should be.”

Writer’s email: yawowusu1403@gmail.com