NPP sets up committee to probe losses in parliamentary elections

Following its major losses of parliamentary seats in the just-ended general elections, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has set up a committee to look into what went wrong.

According to the Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the committee is expected to bring its report and recommendations to the party within the period of one month.

“We, the NPP, during our emergency national executive meeting, decided we would set up a committee to investigate what happened during the election. We have given them one month for them to investigate.

“We have former Majority Leader on board and other former executives and ambassadors have been put together to investigate the matter for the benefit of the party,” Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said in a media interview yesterday.

Losses

At least, 108 out of the 275 members of the 7th Parliament will not return to the House in the 8th Parliament.

Among the 108 members, 33 incumbent NPP MPs lost their seats to the NDC.

They include Barbara Asher Ayisi, Cape Coast North; Oko Boye, Ledzokuku; Titus Glover, Tema East; Joseph Kpemka,Tempane; Hajia Alima Mahama, Nalerigu/Gambaga; Mathew Nyindam, Kpandai; George Andah, Awutu Senya West, among others.

The abysmal performance in the parliamentary election has led to some party members and groups calling for the head of some executives of the NPP, citing the imposition of parliamentary candidates on some of the constituencies, resulting in “skirt and blouse” voting.

Pro-NPP group Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) has advocated a complete overhaul of the party.

AFAG’s General Secretary, Arnold Boateng, in a media interview, described the NPP’s performance as totally unacceptable, stressing the need for a restructuring of the party.

He said the NPP’s electoral college system should be expanded to enable all card-bearing members to participate in constituency, regional and national elections as well as parliamentary primaries.

This, according to Arnold Boateng, will deepen openness and fairness in the party’s internal contests.

“Most importantly, an expansion of the electoral college will create the opportunity for all card bearing members to decisively elect constituency, regional, national executives and also parliamentary candidates.

“This will help minimize vote buying, which increases corruption on a wider scale, and also create the opportunity for competent party loyalists to contest future parliamentary primaries,” he stated.

More pressure

Another youth group calling itself Upper East Patriotic Movement for Growth has also called for the resignation of the party’s regional executives.

To the group, the current crop of executives lacks direction and the needed competence to ensure that the NPP develops and shore up its fortunes in Parliament.

The group is shocked that although these executives were provided with the needed resources, they failed to make a mark in the election, adding that they did not run a results-oriented campaign.

“In our beloved Upper East Region, it was only a few regional executives who in the last month to elections found time to move across all the 15 constituencies engaging floating voters and influential persons in those areas,” the group said in a statement.

To the group, although the New Patriotic Party has had the best regional representation in terms of executives, they failed in the execution of their duties.

Call for cool heads

However, the Member of Parliament-elect for the Kwadaso constituency, Dr Kingsley Nyarko, has called for cool heads, urging all aggrieved supporters of the NPP to come together and find an amicable way forward to address the losses.

“We need to get a more scientific basis so that we will be able to identify the exact reasons for our performance in the 2020 elections. That is how we will be able to address those identifiable causes to enable us perform well in the 2024 elections,” he said in an interview with the Daily Statesman.