Leave us out of your presidential debates – NPP to NCCE

The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has dissociated itself from any presidential debate the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) intends to hold ahead of the December elections.

According to the NPP, the NCCE has not had any prior engagements with the party on the matter and has, therefore, breached courtesy by publicly announcing its plans for such a debate.

The NCCE Director of Public Affairs, Mrs Joyce Afutu is reported to have announced that the commission will organise three Presidential Candidates’ Debate in three zones: Northern, Middle and Southern in September, October and November in collaboration with Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC).

The Commission would also organise Parliamentary Candidates’ Debate in all 275 constituencies and undertake door to door/dawn and dusk broadcast on voter turn-out from September to December.

Reacting to this, the NPP statement signed by General Secretary John Boadu said: “The NPP is completely unaware of the claims by the NCCE, and, therefore, cannot be said to be a party to any such arrangements.”

“The NCCE has, at no point, engaged the NPP and its leadership in any conversation regarding the Commission’s intention to organise any debates involving the party’s presidential candidate in the buildup to election 2020. The NPP has also not made any solicitation to the NCCE to this effect."

“It is, therefore, surprising and mindboggling that the NCCE, not having had any prior engagements with the party on the matter, would go ahead to announce to the world that it had scheduled to hold three presidential debates in the months of September, October, and December among all the presidential candidates”, said Mr. Boadu.

The statement added that beyond the fact that the NCCE’s action “is in clear breach of courtesy and standard practice,” the Commission also has no inkling of the NPP’s calendar of activities for the party’s 2020 electioneering campaign.

To this end, the NPP emphasised that it dissociates itself from the purported ‘presidential debates schedules’ announced by the NCCE, and appealed to the Commission not to include the NPP in the arrangements unless and until the party so permits.