Last Saturday’s parliamentary primaries of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have reignited calls for the expansion of the Electoral College of the NPP to include all registered members of the party in good standing.
A number of defeated parliamentary aspirants have been sharing their experiences publicly, with some lamenting bitterly about the outcome of the primaries which saw not less than 24 sitting MPs crashing out in their bid for re-election.
Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, NPP Chairman for Afigya-Kwabre South in the Ashanti Region, who has opened a fresh debate on the issue, says the existing Electoral College of the party is an explicitly undemocratic and exclusionary system that denies many popular people the opportunity to get elected as parliamentary candidates in the various constituencies.
According to him, the present Electoral College has assigned far too powerful and weighty a responsibility to few party members who can easily be manipulated by any ‘political Bill Gate’ in deciding who becomes a parliamentary candidate.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with DAILY GUIDE about his observations from the NPP primaries and grumbles of defeated aspirants, Odeneho stated that he supported proponents of an entire-members popular vote to select parliamentary candidates in the various constituencies.
“People have been arguing in favour of all members popular vote for many years, particularly since the introduction of money into Ghanaian politics. Not only do I support expanding the Electoral College to rope in more members, I also support instituting Electoral College-type systems on the registered membership of the party at the constituency,” he noted.
In his view, the college has become a regular reminder of an exclusionary form of electing leaders in the party and a demagogue system of determining who gets to vote and be voted for.
He argued that such expansion would provide the opportunity for executive members to rake in more revenue to run party activities in the constituency since the Electoral College would constitute paid-up members.
“The smaller number of people constituting delegates needs not retain its influence in the party if we are to be a free society of people with like minds and leaders chosen by the many, and not an enslaved and polarised group with leaders chosen by the few. This is something I have given considerable thought to,” he intimated.
His view is shared by former General Secretary of the NPP, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, who believes the expansion of the Electoral College will take away monetary inducement.
Sir John, as he is affectionately called, decried the development while speaking on Hello FM and asserted that monetary inducement tends to skew elections in favour of a privileged few, thereby denying others the opportunity.
Antoa Connection
On the issue of taking money and swearing to vote for a particular candidate by delegates, Chairman Odeneho Appiah said he did not witness anything of that sort in his constituency, but indicated that he overheard rumours of some people having sworn oaths to the Antoa Nyama deity.
He entreated all those who allegedly took money and swore to the deity to vote in a particular direction to return such monies so that nemesis would not catch up with them.
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