NPP not abandoning 'bottom-to-top' approach with early flagbearer election - Muhayu-Deen
File photo of an NPP flag
Private legal practitioner, Iddi Muhayu-Deen, has refuted claims that the decision by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to elect the party’s flagbearer before its executives violates the party’s traditional ‘bottom-to-top’ approach.
In a write-up sighted by GhanaWeb, he explained that the election of the flagbearer is distinct from the party’s national and grassroots elections, which are required to follow the ‘bottom-to-top’ approach.
He emphasised that the NEC of the NPP is mandated by the party’s constitution to organise the flagbearership election at any time it deems appropriate.
“The NPP is not, and has never contemplated, changing its traditional approach to electing party executives. Article 5(2) of the NPP Constitution provides the structure and organisation of the party, stating: ‘The Party shall be based on Polling Station, Electoral Area, Constituency, External, Regional, and National Organisations.’
“In line with this, the party has always elected executives starting from the Polling Station level, to the Electoral Area, Constituency, Regional, and then to the National level, that is, the Bottom-to-Top Approach, and will continue to do exactly that. According to the party’s constitution, the position of the Presidential Candidate is not part of the structure and organisation of the party. It is neither at the top nor the bottom because it simply does not fall within the party’s structural framework,” he wrote.
He further explained, “Similarly, the party’s parliamentary primaries to elect parliamentary candidates are also not part of the party’s structural organisation. That is why the National Executive Committee, per Article 12 of the NPP Constitution, can decide to fix any date for parliamentary primaries and has, in fact, almost always scheduled separate dates for primaries in ‘orphan constituencies’ and in constituencies where the party has sitting MPs.”
Read the full write-up below:
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