Should MPs also resign 3 years before they can qualify to contest flagbearership?

As independent Voluntary Ghanaian Advocacy Group based in the United Kingdom, CENAB-UK, we have been following the NPP Members of Parliament clandestine and undemocratic moves seeking to obtain the absolute powers to control the party’s affairs the way they want and take unwarranted advantage to stay in parliament as long as they choose, irrespective of the bare fact that, some MPs maybe very ineffective, irresponsible, incompetent and unproductive, and would need to be replaced at any given opportunity.

Reading through the National Council’s resolutions presented at press conference held by the Acting General Secretary, Mr John Boadu, and comparing with the proposals submitted by the MPs to the recent National Delegates Conference held at Cape Coast (2017) to amend the NPP national constitution, and it has become readily visible that, the MPs have long been finding ways and means to force this perilous idea on the party to extremely ring fence them to stay in Parliament as long as they want. An idea which does not promote democracy.

These groundless proposals when first submitted to the National Delegates Conference in Cape Coast was vehemently opposed by members, which led to the setting up of the Special Constitutional Amendments Committee to look into the entire 107 pages document containing the 17 chapters of various proposals. For this reason, December 2017 was set to exclusively hold the Super Delegates Conference to decide on the finality of proposed amendments.

Now, the NPP Majority Caucus in parliament, knowing that their self-centred proposals seeking to put blank wall to any potential MMDCE or Party Executives was likely to face fierce resistance and possibly rejected at the upcoming Super Delegate National Conference, have resolved to coercing the National Council (NC) to agree to rather pass such absurd undemocratic resolutions to groundlessly deny members from contesting the sitting MPs, and by so doing, swerving the debate of this idea thoroughly at floor of the upcoming National Delegate Conference.

Meaning, this is to be implemented in NPP from now onwards, that the MMDCEs and Party Executives are to formally resign from their positions 3-good years in advance before one can qualify to contest a sitting MP. This idea, amongst other undemocratic demands were part of the proposals submitted for amendment of the NPP constitution by the MPs, as found in chapter 2 & 3 in the 107 pages document containing the proposed amendments which was furiously opposed at the Cape Coast National Delegates Conference.

According to the National Council’s resolutions issued, the basis for the NC's decision was that; (quote) “We realized that the issue of party officials and their members of parliament fighting to become MPs have affected various political parties including our own political party, the NPP, and we will not allow that to happen again.” For this, a roadblock has been introduced with “3 years abstinence” from party leadership or government appointment. Is this democratically fair enough?

This reason given, undoubtedly carries the potential to imbue strong dissensions among members and can cause numerous lawsuits against the party, which at the end, will endanger the peace and stability in the governing party if these resolutions are implemented. It will ultimately force some ambitious MMDCEs and Party Executives to concealedly start preparing themselves towards going as independent parliamentary candidates, since the party has unjustifiably denied them the rightful opportunity to contest an MP seat.

The question is, does this resolutions apply to the Ministers of state who aren't Members of Parliament and may want to contest a sitting MP in future? Should a Minister who is not MP also resign 3 years before he can contest the MP seat? If not, why not the Ministers too? Can't the Ministers of state also have undue advantage over a sitting MP who is not a Minister of state?

In future, would the MPs also resign 3 years in advance from parliament before they can qualify to contest the NPP Flag-bearership position? If not, why not?

Is there any factual evidence that truly suggests that indeed putting this hindrance to impede the MMDCEs and Party Executives from contesting a sitting MP would truly prevent a diabolical MMDCE from sabotaging the MPs as alleged? Are we looking at the MP performing better to retain their seats or only finding solution to the alleged internal fierce/fitting contest?

How does the Party Executives fight the sitting MPs? Is the fiercely contested internal election now been described as fighting? What if any MMDCE decides to fight or sabotage an MP in order to create advantage for his or her preferred candidate or a family member in the constituency without necessarily taken the advantage himself?

We believe, answers to these salient questions should have informed the decision to pass this harsh resolutions. This 3-year resign to contest decision is a compound ground for ardent contentions at the constituencies, and can also lead some MMDCEs and party Executives to start harnessing their ambition early to go as independent parliamentary candidate in 2020.

We can foresee that, this resolutions if implemented will hang the spirit of patriotism in the party, and shall be injurious to the strength of the party at all levels since an unjustifiable disadvantage has been created for party members. This will obviously procreate momentous apathy amongst the elected executives at the constituencies at all levels, whereby the invariable principles of supportiveness that the party enjoys in election period would diminish.

The long run effect of this undemocratic decision is that, it paves way for some inefficient, unpopular, incompetent and irresponsible MPs to ‘Mugabetise’ themselves at the Constituencies and continue their stay in parliament, and at the end all, conspicuous voting apathy will set in, and thereby causing the unpopular MPs to lose their seats to the opponents/independent candidates.

CENAB-UK Advocacy Group has observed some distressing facts in our research that, some MPs simply lack the requisite competence and managerial skills to confidently and professionally liaise with the MMDCEs to get some projects done. Also some MPs, as we have found sometimes feel intimidated by the pedigree and distinguished stature of some MMDCEs, and for that matter finds it difficult to approach them to discuss important developmental ideas.

It is natural that as we’ve seen that, when a DCE demonstrates excellence performance in a district, the people see it, and seeing the skilful and competent delivery by an MMDCE, perhaps far better than the elected MP, the people themselves turn to advocate for the DCE to become their area MP instead. Ring-fencing some MPs to stay in parliament for too long can also have its own detrimental effects and the party stands to lose more as the people see no appreciable development initiated by the non-performing MP.

How does the NPP seeks to groom its future leaders and get rid of non-performing MPs with this demoralising resolutions passed? Why create such dangerous environment to block potential competent party members and MMDCEs? We are seriously wondering.

It was dumbfounding reading the proposal for amendment as submitted by the NPP MPs. In our view, the essence of reviewing any policy document or amending any national constitution should aimed at fixing the ineffective or broken parts identified. A constitution of a political party or national constitution is not just amended for the sake of amending it, just because some group of members see that there is readily obtainable opportunity to cause such amendments. The internationally established standards dictates that, an amendment of constitution should be designed to be extremely difficult to do so.

We think that, the reasons professed by the National Council to pass ‘the 3-year-resign-to-contest MP seat’ is too parochial and does not solve broader spectrum of issues. The reasons should satisfy all reasonableness and compellingly enough to alter the current process used to select the party’s parliamentary candidates.

As the saying goes, “if it isn’t broken, why fix it?”. The resolution is only serving the interest of the elected MPs, not the party in general. The party may end up solving more problems with many members daring to go independent and can cause the party to lose some important seats.

In perusing through the MPs proposals found in the 107 pages document for amendment, one thing very apparent and needs immediate attention is the method used by the party to collect proposed amendments from the MPs and its members in general.

The process is noticeably anaemic, and not properly structured which paves way for the National Executives, especially the General Secretary and the National Chairman who may be seeking re-election, turn to operate in the sole merciful hands of the MPs as they would have to revert back to the MPs to ask for their votes to be re-elected.

For this reason, the MPs always have the upper hand to manipulate and coerce the executives to push through some unjustifiable and absurd amendments just like we have seen passed by the NC. This also creates the surface for anything at-all, to be submitted to the National Delegates Conference for consideration to amend the constitution.

A situation if diligence care is not taken, some morbid and unhealthy proposals can be adopted at the blind side of the majority at usually compressed Conference to the detriment of the entire party’s operation and its chances, so as to serve some parochial interest of certain individuals or some group of people in the party.

CENAB–UK believes that the resolutions passed by the NPP National Council purport to fix no readily seen fault with the current process used to select the parliamentary candidates, rather, an attempt to serve the inward-looking interest of the MPs, to enable them entrench themselves and stay in parliament as long as they want.

A recipe for non-performance, as the resolution passed did not consider the general democratic principles of the party and its ethical ideology that the party is known for, but just a way to serve the egocentric desires of the MPS. This a recipe for an untold chaos.

We therefore humbly ask that, the matter should be presented on the floor at the upcoming National Delegates Conference for proper debate, to either adopt it or reject it. We believe it is not a good policy to be implemented! Probably, if the party really wants to ring fence its MPs to accumulate enough experience, they should rather pass a resolution to say that, no one should contest a first term MP until the end of their second term.

Again, the question is, does an MP staying longer in parliament truly makes them accumulate the enough needed experience as we have seen the new MPs like Kwadwo Oppong Nkrumah, who is a first term MP and yet already performing wonderfully in parliament so far, whiles some MPs are there in their third term but have never spoken a word before. What about that?

---- Signed ----