The New Patriotic Party (NPP) says its National Council has not yet agreed on any conclusive timelines for the conduct of the Party’s presidential and parliamentary primaries ahead of the December 2024 general elections.
The Party says media reports on definite dates and timelines for the NPP’s presidential and parliamentary primaries should be disregarded and treated as untrue.
Media reports
The National Council of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) according to media reports citing multiple sources in the party, is said to have decided that the party will hold its conference to elect its flagbearer for the 2024 presidential elections in November 2023.
The reports also suggested that the Party will conduct its parliamentary primaries to elect parliamentary candidates for constituencies where it has sitting Members of Parliament in January 2024.
The National Council is believed to have reached these conclusive timelines at its meeting held at Alisa Hotel on Friday 23 December 2022.
However, on ‘orphan constituencies’ (parliamentary seats occupied by the opposition), the National Council meeting could not decide on conclusive timelines. The primaries to elect parliamentary candidates for such constituencies are largely expected to be held in April 2023.
NPP Denial
In a press release dated 24 December 2022 and signed by the general secretary of the Party, Justin Kodua Frimpong, the NPP says “the attention of the leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been drawn to publications on some online media portals” on the fact that the Party has settled on specific timelines for is presidential and parliamentary primaries.
“To start with, contrary to the claims made in the publication, the National Council of the NPP, at its last meeting, has NOT agreed on any conclusive timelines for the conduct of the Party’s presidential and parliamentary primaries ahead of the 2024 general elections. The publication is therefore untrue and misleading.
“The meeting could not conclude discussions on some proposed dates for the conduct of the primaries. Consequently, the National Council resolved to defer decision on the matter to allow for further stakeholder engagements in the interest of the party” the press release of the general secretary read.
“It is thus expected that at its next meeting, the National Council may revisit this subject matter and hopefully take a definitive decision regarding the timelines for the conduct of the Party’s presidential and parliamentary primaries.
“As and when these decisions are taken, the Party will definitely communicate same to all its members, stakeholders and the general public. Until then, the publication referenced above is misleading and should be treated as such” the press release further read.
Internal polls
The NPP from 19 February through to 16 July 2022, conducted its internal elections. The party during this period, elected her polling station, constituency, regional and national executive.
The polling station level elections were held from February 19 to March 5, 2022 while the electoral area elections took place from March 18 to March 20 2022.
The constituency executive elections were held at the Constituency Annual Delegates Conference which was supervised by Constituency Election Committees between April 22 and April 24, 2022.
The regional executive elections and for that matter the Regional Annual Delegates Conference were held between 20 and 22 May 2022, and it was supervised by the Regional Election Committees.
The last election held was the National Executive elections. It was conducted during the party’s Annual National Delegates Conference which took place from 14 to 16 July 2022 at the Accra Sports Stadium and it was supervised by a National Elections Committee.
