The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwabena Agyepong has said the party will not cancel its October congress to elect a flagbearer despite pressure from supporters to abandon the original plan.
This follows numerous calls from major regional blocks of the party on the leadership to crown the winner of Sunday’s Super Delegates Congress Nana Akufo-Addo as the presidential candidate without any contest.
The special congress reduced the number of presidential hopefuls from seven to five as stipulated in the party’s constitution.
Two-time presidential candidate of the party, Nana Akufo-Addo emerged the winner with about 81% of the total valid votes cast.
Some members of the party and some political pundits in Ghana say there is no need for the final congress to take place due to Nana Addo’s resounding victory.
The party’s strong constituency in the Diaspora has also given indications it will officially join forces to put pressure on the party’s leadership to let Nana Akufo-Addo stand unopposed.
But Kwabena Agyepong in an interview with Citi News maintained that the October congress will come off as scheduled according to the requirements of their constitution.
He said: “We respect our constitution. Our constitution dictates to us that this was the first stage and now we have the five candidates that will go on to the second stage.”
According to him, it is imperative to work towards the dictates of the party’s constitution; therefore, “every party delegate must be given the chance to vote for his or preferred candidate.
Agyepong insisted that the dictates of the constitution must be respected “and it dictated to us that we have a two-stage process; we’ve finished with the first stage and now, we are now going to the second stage and the rest we will leave it to the candidates themselves,” he added.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan