NPP unveils campaign structure

The New Statesman can exclusively reveal the constituency campaign structure of the New Patriotic Party for the 2012 general elections. The party will form a 20-man campaign team in each of the 21,000 odd existing polling station areas in the country.

Boakye Kyerematen Agyarko, Nana Akufo-Addo’s Campaign Manager, says it will be totally grassroots-based campaign. He made this known when he addressed Ashanti Regional NPP executives as well as winners and losers of the just ended parliamentary primaries in Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region, as part of the post-primary solidarity tour, dubbed “All hands on deck”, being embarked upon by the NPP leadership.

Giving meaning to the “All Hands on deck” exercise, Boakye Agyarko said the NPP’s campaign towards the 2012 general elections will require the active participation of every elected NPP officer as each officer will have a role to play in ensuring victory in 2012 for the NPP.

He stated that the campaign to be embarked upon by the NPP, from now till the 2012 general elections, will mainly be driven by the politics of the community, with polling station executives and electoral area co-ordinators serving as the nucleus of volunteers in their respective communities who will give their time to support the party win 2012.

“Working with the grassroots of our party is going to be a vital component of our campaign, because it is one of the main ways of communicating and ensuring the party’s message of hope is delivered to all voters”, he said.

According to Boakye Agyarko, the NPP campaign for victory in 2012 will be in three tiers, namely the Constituency, Regional and National Campaign Teams.

Touching on the constituency campaign teams, the Campaign Manager stated that there would be a canvassing team in every polling station area. This will be made up of the five polling station executives and 10 others to be chosen by the Presidential Candidate, and an additional five to be selected by the parliamentary candidate.

Constituency executives will play an active supervisory role and ensure that everything pertaining to the campaign goes according to plan. Thus all constituency executives are members of the constituency campaign team.

The parliamentary candidate in every constituency will serve as the Chairman of the constituency campaign team, whilst the constituency Chairman will serve as Vice Chairman of the campaign team. The chairperson of constituency council of elders will also be a member of the constituency campaign team together with 5 others to be selected by the Nana Addo in consultation with the parliamentary candidate.

Boakye Agyarko did not mince words when he warned parliamentary candidates to desist from picking their own campaign teams aside the one selected by national executives, stating categorically that the party will not tolerate any parallel campaign setup by any parliamentary candidate.

At the regional level, the regional campaign team will be chaired by the Regional Chairman, with the Vice Chairman being selected by the Presidential Candidate. The Presidential Candidate will also nominate 5 persons to this team. In addition to this, parliamentary candidates in the region will also nominate 3 members to the campaign team.