<<Print>>

The Progressive People�s Party (PPP) has begun a comprehensive reorganisation of the party to enable it to contest the 2016 general elections. In line with this goal, the party is reorganising its cells, wards, constituencies and regional branches across the country to inject efficiency into their operations. Already, executive members of the party are on a nationwide tour to assess the party�s strength at the grassroots level. The tour, which has taken them to the Western, Central, Greater Accra and Eastern regions, afforded the executives the opportunity to take stock of the party�s performance as well as the challenges of the 2012 elections. The executives are expected to move to the Volta Region this week to continue the reorganisation of the party and its new direction, while the other regions would be visited subsequently. Mr Kofi Asamoah, National Secretary of the PPP, in an interview, said the tour also provided the platform to discuss issues such as the party�s position on the election petition at the Supreme Court, political tension in the country, the need for electoral reforms, as well as governance issues. He also said it was the objective of the party to have five executive members in each of the 26,000 polling stations to see to the reorganisation of the party at the cells, units and wards level. The national secretary said after all the 26,000 polling stations had elected their executives, comprising a chairman, vice-chairman, secretary, organiser and women organiser, they would attend constituency conferences to elect constituency executives. He added that the constituencies would in turn elect their delegates for the regional conferences where they would be expected to elect their regional executives. In addition, the party is also expected to elect their parliamentary candidates for each of the 275 constituencies before the year ends to enable them to have more time at their disposal to introduce them to the electorates. He added that in the 2012 polls, the party did not have the opportunity to expose their candidates to the voters as the party was launched in 2012, which was the election year. He said the party had taken a cue from the time constraint it suffered in the last elections. It had, therefore, decided to put its house in order before the next general elections to enable the part y to make an impact in the 2016 polls. He said the party would immediately start campaigning after the reorganisation exercise by organising programmes such as town hall meetings, village-to-village and house-to-house meetings to convince people to accept the principles and programmes of the party and buy into it. The national secretary also said the tours were also being used to encourage party members to take interest in the upcoming district assembly elections and play roles in them, to test their competence at the grassroots level before they contested parliamentary elections.