Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Council of Elders, Hackman Owusu Agyemang, has revealed the Council will engage all aspirants vying for the party’s flagbearer position.
According to him, this will help them adequately know the aspirants and their reasons for contesting. He further indicated that it is meant to determine who is equally competent to vie for the position.
Mr Agyemang iterated that the engagement also affords the Council to meet with the aspirants, assess them and also help clarify matters on the individuals and also ascertain what they stand for.
“For now, we are looking at the individuals who have come to introduce themselves, we have exchanged ideas with some of them, the national council has assessed some of them and I’d like to underscore this is not the vetting process…”
Hackman Owusu Agyemang
Elaborating on the party’s intentions for engaging aspirants, Mr Agyemang indicated that it is to ensure and re-enforce the fairness and the transparent nature of the elections the party is about to undertake. He noted that currently, the party’s Council has met with quite a few of the aspirants and are very satisfied with what is going on.
Reacting to the number of people who have picked the form, totaling ten, Mr Agyemang underscored that the Council of Elders considers the whole party and situation and advises accordingly. In this instance, he explained that as it’s the party’s tradition, it’s an open contest.
“So, each and every one of us who feels able to compete is welcomed to do that. But in the process, we have to put in place a system for filtering our people so we get to five and that will be done by the Electoral College… The national council is aware of the number of people who have taken the form, the process continues and when it ends, we shall put in place the system that we have as party to filter these numbers and bring it down to five.”
Hackman Owusu Agyemang
NPP to scale down number of aspirants
Furthermore, the Chairman of the Council of Elders for the NPP emphasized that although the contest is open, the number of people who have shown interest matters to some extent. He stated that although there are few people within the party who think it doesn’t matter, the Council considers it a big deal.
“… That is why the party changed the constitution and said it should be an electoral college which should change the number to five… I think this system is done in most places… So, the numbers matter a lot, otherwise, there’s a bit of confusion and controlling it becomes a bit of a problem. Our involvement at this stage is the fact that we like to talk to all of them, advise them on how they go about campaigning… All these are important so we will tell them what to do.”
Hackman Owusu Agyemang
To ensure transparency in the election, Mr Agyemang revealed that the NPP is committed to ensuring the implementation of the party’s code of conduct, despite the fact that the Council has an input.
“… It’s still important the elders speak to them and underscore these points effectively so that we’ll have hopefully, a very peaceful election and then get the flagbearer who will then compete with the opposition in other parties and make sure we break the 8.
Hackman Owusu Agyemang
Commenting on the vetting process, Mr Agyemang indicated that the Vetting Committee will be responsible and not the Council. He pointed out that so far, the Council has engaged Adae Nimo, Agyarko, Owusu Afriyie and will today June 2, 2023, meet Kyerematen and Dr Bawumia.
“… It’s not a vetting process, the vetting process will be done by the vetting committee of the party. This is in a traditional sense, introducing themselves to us as elders and saying this is my ambition. It’s been very interesting situations… I think it’s very interesting that we are having this first engagement with them and when we go to the filtering process, that is the electoral college, it will also help us to make up our mind in our own thinking vis-a vis the individuals that are contesting.”
Hackman Owusu Agyemang
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