Mr. Gordon Newlove Asamoah, Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Business Research, has described the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) directive to ban all activities related to party contests and supporters’ display of aspirants’ paraphernalia at the party’s national delegates conference as unconscionable and undemocratic.
The party’s leadership issued a statement banning any actions related to internal party contests, parliamentary and presidential primaries, and the presentation of prospective aspirants’ apparel and posters at the party’s upcoming National Annual Delegates Conference in Kumasi.
However, speaking on Kumasi-based Abusua FM, Mr Asamoah believes the step is far below average and has the tendency of waning the democratic fortunes of the country.
He insists there’s nothing wrong for party supporters to publicly declare their intentions for others as that will eventually further deepen the democratic credentials of the country.
He further says previously before any conference, billboards and other posters were displayed by supporters to make their candidates popular at the grassroots level.
Mr. Asamoah continues that the leadership of the NPP may want to protect its preferred candidate after realizing other candidates are gaining ground.
He notes “I think the party is trying to protect its preferred candidate after noticing that some other candidates are gaining ground. I don’t seem to understand why the party ordered for candidates to pull down their billboards forgetting that huge sums of money was paid, it doesn’t make sense at all to me.”
“I keep saying that the NPP government doesn’t learn anything, because they’ve soon forgotten the lesson learned from the 2020 parliamentary elections at Fomena where they all campaigned against the independent candidate including the president, and he eventually won, they should have learned that any person who is preferred by the grassroots no matter the manipulations by the party nothing will change, he added.
The Ashanti Regional Organizer of the NPP Mr. Frank Adomako however clarifies that
the decision was taken by the party to prevent delegates from concentrating solely on banners and other campaign activities instead of paying attention to the main activity.
He states that the decision was also taken to forestall some unseen circumstances which may mud the beauty of the event.
