NPP Flagbearer: avoiding controversy in selecting delegates

As members of the ruling party look to the future and what it might bring - as 19 presidential hopefuls weigh their chances of taking the flagbearer position – this newspaper has taken an increasing interest in the preparations for the probable December 15 show-down.

The date for the NPP presidential primaries is provisionally set; the NDC candidate, John Evans Atta Mills, is already elected and on the campaign trail - John Mahama may be announced as his running mate by January; whilst the race for the NPP flagbearership is just heating up.

Calls for constitutional amendments, and confusion over constitutional provisions, have been the recent backdrop of the presidential race. Will the hopefuls have to resign once they tender their nominations? Certainly, unless the party constitution is amended or the President chooses to ignore his own party bible.

Is it right that Members of Parliament do not have an automatic position in the party's national congress, but must be elected as one of their constituency"s allocated 10 delegates? Yes, according to O B Amoah, the longest serving member of the Legal and Constitutional Committee of the NPP, who told The Statesman recently that the constitutional provision is a deliberate one, to make sure that delegates have support from the local, grass-roots level. No, according to others, with moves within the party to give both Constituency Executive Officers and Regional Officers an automatic vote.

Even the constitutional provisions as they stand have come under some scrutiny, with members pointing out the failure of constituencies to follow the proscribed means of voting in previous elections, and calling for a strictly-by-the-book implementation this time around. Indeed, the question of selecting delegates from the constituency level is surrounded in not only controversy but also confusion; a situation which we believe requires some clarification. Without coming down on either side of the argument, The Statesman hopes today to bring some lucidity to an issue which deserves some serious attention, highlighting and explaining the constitution as it stands now, and the various calls for change.

According to the constitution of the New Patriotic Party, the process of electing constituency delegates for the national party conference operates thus: Every constituency executive committee (of 11, including the Member of Parliament) around the country is required to convene an extraordinary constituency delegates conference to elect, when required, six members of the constituency who are not constituency officers, together with electing four constituency officers, to be the ten delegates sent to national congress. The constituency executive committee comprises the constituency officers, who with the exception of the financial secretary, who is appointed, are elected at the annual constituency delegates’ conference, and the sitting parliamentarian or parliamentary candidate for the constituency.

At the annual conference – and thus at the extraordinary conference supposed to be held to decide on the national delegates – the chairperson of each polling station executive committee is also required to be present. With almost 21,500 polling stations in the country, that is about 21,500 polling station chairpersons who form part of the delegate selection process, and who may themselves be chosen as delegates for the party conference. For aspiring presidential candidates, those 21,500 extra men could make all the difference when it comes to winning the flagbearer position – if the party constitution were to be followed to the letter, the cost of 'persuading’ these extra voters to vote for them could be very expensive indeed, is one argument. On average, that is 93 polling chairmen in each of the country’s 230 constituencies.

Meanwhile, it is notable that ordinary members are not part of the decision-making conference; and even though the extraordinary conference could technically vote for any card-carrying and paid-up member in good standing, to fill the six delegate seats not intended for constituency officers, in reality they are highly unlikely to be granted the opportunity.

This is the decision-making process as it stands, according to the party’s constitution. It is not, The Statesman can report with authority, the decision-making process as has been the status quo for previous elections; with the idea of an extraordinary conference proceeding the national congress probably as new to some constituency executives as it is to the readers of this editorial. The party has certainly not been diligent about enforcing its own constitutional provisions, but as The Statesman reports today, there is fresh resolve to see these provisions now followed. The extraordinary conference, comprising not only the constituency executive council but also the polling station chairman, will now elect the ten delegates; but what of the legitimacy of this voting body, and what of the wider changes which must be considered, if the NPP insists on following the constitution to the letter?

A constitutional amendment requires that all polling station chairmen should be elected officers, but this newspaper can reveal that for a significant number of constituencies, the old practice of simply appointing a chairman has lived on. What, then, of their legitimacy to sit on the extraordinary conference; and what of the wider legitimacy of the polling executive, if they have been working unelected? In its insistence on adhering to the constitution, The Statesman advises the national party executive to read very carefully the small print of the party book – in what looks set to be a hotly contested flagbearer race, there must be no mistakes.