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The New Patriotic Party has directed all metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives who intend to contest parliamentary seats in areas where there is a sitting MP to resign years before the primaries.

Addressing journalists at the party headquarters in Accra, Acting General Secretary of NPP John Boadu explained that MMDCEs need to resign three years before the general elections. The directive, according to Mr. Boadu, applies to constituency and regional executives as well.

This means persons holding any of these positions ought to resign latest by next year ahead of the 2020 elections The John Boadu further indicated, ‘‘the party has no plans to expand the Electoral College at the polling station level.’’

Meanwhile, Dr. Edward Brenya, a Political Science Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, appears to side with the party. He noted that most often those holding positions in the party use their influence to select the delegates that vote at the primaries, which sometimes create confusion.

“In many instances at the general elections the sitting MP decides to go independent and when that happens you get the situation where their votes split and then with the possibility of losing the seat,” he explained. He added “yes we might want to say the decision itself looks as if it is intended to protect the sitting member of parliament, but then we can also look at it from the history of what normally happens…”