NPP presents guidelines for parliamentary primaries in "orphan districts"

Policy of Saturday, July 13, 2019

Source: Ghananewsagency.org

2019-07-13

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has set guidelines and modalities for the conduct of its parliamentary primaries in orphan constituencies before the 2020 legislative elections.

Orphan constituencies are those where the party has no members.

NPP Secretary-General John Boadu said Friday that the guidelines were approved at the party's national steering committee meeting on Thursday, 11 July.

The statement stated that the initiative of the National Steering Committee was in accordance with the directives of the National Executive Committee of the Party, which met on 1 July 2019, in accordance with Articles 12 and 13 of the Party Constitution.

According to the schedule, the party would open nominations for orphaned constituencies from July 20 and close on August 3; while elections will be held on September 28, simultaneously throughout the country.

The statement added that candidates in the parliamentary elections had to obtain nomination forms after the payment of non-refundable application fees in the amount of 2,000 GHS and a filing fee of 20,000 GHS in name. from the banker to the NPP headquarters in Accra.

According to the statement, in order to encourage more women, youth and people with reduced mobility to aspire to higher political office, these potential candidates in the legislature would benefit from a 50% discount on deposit fees.

"This means that they will have to pay a non-refundable deposit fee of 10,000 GHS," the statement said.

The statement urged candidates to submit nomination forms to the constituency parliamentary election committee for approval and certification, and then to the regional secretariat for approval and certification.

The regional secretariat will then be required to submit all these forms to the National Secretariat for final approval and certification by the Secretary General, the statement said.

"If an aspirant encounters any impediment in the final ranking process at the constituency level, he may do so through the regional secretariat or the national secretariat of the office of the secretary-general.

"The Constituency Secretary will publish, at the close of the bid, the list of all the candidates who have successfully applied to participate in the primaries," the statement said.

According to the statement; The selection of candidates took place from 10 to 15 August and the selection report was submitted to CEN through the Secretary General no later than 18 August.

The National Parliamentary Appeals Committee will receive petitions from aspiring unsuccessful or disqualified candidates from August 20th to 23rd and the poll will be published on August 31st.

According to the statement, only members of the constituency and regional executive committee will be allowed to attend the control session and a candidate who is not satisfied with the monitoring process and its results may seek redress from the National Appeals Committee .

The statement said that; for the avoidance of doubt, no candidate should refer to a court in an election-related case until he has exhausted all internal remedies and dispute settlement mechanisms in accordance with article 4, paragraph 8 of the law. Constitution of the party.

The photo album / register, which was used to elect constituency officials at the election of February 2018, will be the same album that will be made available to all and the Electoral Commission for the conduct primaries.

The statement added that any delegate wishing to appoint an agent should send a request to the national secretariat two weeks before the parliamentary primaries.

The statement warned that any aspirant who violates any of the guidelines and modalities or would behave in such a way as to discredit the name of the party would be considered to have violated Article 4 (7) of the constitution of the NPP and, consequently, to be sanctioned, which included the prohibition of participating in primaries.