Editorial: NPP Needs To Be Democratized

In light of the drubbing it took in the recent presidential and parliamentary elections, the NPP, the former governing party in Ghana, should seriously review its policy regarding who gets the party's nomination to run for president. That policy is shamefully biased in favor of a particular ethnic group and a particular gender. We think the party needs to do this in order to resuscitate its flagging popularity and possibly win back power.

When was the last time the NPP fielded a presidential candidate who was not an Akan, a Twi-speaking Akan, that is? And when was the last time the party chose a woman either to head a presidential ticket or as a running mate? None of these has ever happened. On the other hand, Twi-speaking Akan men have unfailingly been given the honor to represent the party as presidential candidates, with party members of different ethnicities and anyone else who might be interested settling for the largely inconsequential vice presidential slot, which goes to Northern males most of the time. The ladies lose out at any level.

For a political party that purports to be a modern, progressive national organization, this situation creates the very opposite image, one of a male chauvinist tribal association where access to certain privileges is closed to all outsiders and women. This policy is clearly undemocratic, and worse, it smacks of ethnic and gender discrimination.

As if anyone needed to be reminded, the NPP is the ideological successor to the PP (Progress Party), which was led by Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, a Twi-speaking Akan who became prime minister from the late 60s to the early 70s. Since then, the NPP has had 3 presidential candidates, all of whom were Twi-speaking Akan men. Prof. Adu Boahene was the first NPP presidential candidate, followed by John Agyekum Kufuor, and, most recently, Nana Akuffo Addo. This makes 4 Twi-speaking Akan men in a row to serve as flag-bearers of the PP/NPP political establishment. Was all this coincidence or by design?

We think change is overdue. For the next presidential election, due in 2012, the net must be cast a whole lot wider to embrace as many good candidates as possible from both genders for both the presidency and vice presidency. Toward this end, it will be very helpful if party elders can curb their nostalgic fascination with PP/NPP luminaries of yore such as Dr. J.B. Danquah and Dr. Busia. This fascination, as admirable as it is, tends to make the elders partial to candidates with some kind of connection or affiliation with those pioneering leaders of the party just to perpetuate the so-called Danquah/Busia tradition, which most Ghanaians today can hardly relate to anyway.

It is unfair to select presidential candidates on the basis of their connection with any past party leaders, no matter how great the contribution of those past leaders to the party’s cause. This clannish mentality, coupled with good old-fashioned male superiority complex, is mainly responsible for the NPP nominating only Twi-speaking Akan men as candidates all the time. This has to change.

And nothing would symbolize this change more than the party elders persuading the 2008 presidential candidate, Nana Akuffo Addo, to give up his quest for a second run. Nana Akuffo Addo may have all the qualities and qualifications to be president, but the truth is that he had his chance and he blew it. In the interest of fairness, and in the spirit of democracy, he must step aside gracefully and give another person the chance to try, as all loosing candidates in the U.S. and other great democracies do. He doesn't have to be president; in fact, no one does. If he thinks he does, then he has succumbed to his ego and is not acting in the best interest of his party and his country at large. The NPP must either democratize and become a more inclusive organization or watch its political fortunes continue to decline as Ghanaians increasingly perceive it as the party of Twi-speaking Akans that also discriminate against women. The main beneficiary of such a development would be its chief rival, the NDC, which appears to do a better job with ethnic diversity in the selection of its presidential candidates, although it is just as bad as the NPP when it comes to gender equality.

Wouldn't it be such a refreshing break with the past if the NPP were to have either a non-Twi-speaking male or a woman from any ethnic group as its flag-bearer in 2012?