Accra, July 16, GNA – Delegates who never had the opportunity to meet National Executive aspirants of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in person will have the opportunity to ‘shake hands’ with them today on the ballot paper.
A total of 6,730 delegates from across the country will converge at the Accra Sports Stadium today, Saturday, July 16, 2022 to decide the fate of 46 aspirants who have been cleared by the Party’s National Elections Committee to partake in the contest.
The positions being contested are: National Chairman, Vice Chairman, General Secretary, Organiser, Youth Organiser, Treasurer, Women’s Organiser, and Nasara Coordinator.
The successful aspirants will steer the affairs of the Party until 2026, but their topmost task would be to shepherd the NPP to victory in the 2024 general elections.
The National Chairman and General Secretary contests have been tipped by analysts as the “must watch” races.
The aspirants for the Chairmanship position in the order in which they will appear on the ballot paper are: Gifty Asantewa Ayeh, Sammy Crabbe, Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Ekumfi, Akwasi Osei Adjei, Stephen Ayesu Ntim, Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, and Kwabena Abankwa-Yeboah.
Mr Ntim, who is contesting the Chairmanship position for the fifth consecutive time, seeks to break the deadlock after failing to clinch the seat on four occasions since 2005.
The aspirants for the General Secretary position are: John Boadu, Iddrisu Musah, Ramseyer Ahmed Agyeman-Prempeh, Frederick Opare Ansah, and Justin Kodua Frimpong.
Mr Boadu, the incumbent, led the Party to victory in 2016 (when he was the Acting General Secretary) and 2020, following his election as General Secretary at the NPP’s 2018 National Delegates Congress in Koforidua in the Eastern Region.
For weeks, the aspirants have been crisscrossing the various constituencies in the 16 regions to sell their messages to delegates in a bid to convince them to vote for them.
One critical concern of most aspirants had been that the Party “has lost touch” with its supporters at the grassroots level.
They make the case that the Party, since taking the reins of power in 2016, had not “done much” to appease its supporters by way of job opportunities, and other privileges that supporters of a Party in power desire to get.
There have also been concerns about what some aspirants termed as “unfair distribution of opportunities” in the Party, fearing that the NPP may not be able to “break the eight” if those issues were not addressed ahead of the 2024 general elections.
As new aspirants present themselves as the men to lead the ‘reorganisation’ of the Party, incumbent officers are promising to make amends, touting their achievements in the last four years as basis to be re-elected.
Party officials told the Ghana News Agency yesterday that all was set for the NPP’s National Delegates Congress.
“Barring any last minute hitches, we will hold our National Executive Conference tomorrow,” Mr Samuel Kwabena Awuku, the National Organiser, NPP, told journalists when he inspected work on the setting up of the Stadium yesterday.
The Electoral Commission (EC) will supervise the elections, which would take off once the Party completed its pre-election activities this morning.
The EC said it would set up 26 voting centres to speed up the elections.
The Ghana Police Service has also assured that it would deploy 3,000 personnel to the Stadium to ensure maximum security.
GNA