Nomination for the election of the Ashanti Regional representatives to the National Council (NC) of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) will close today for the elections to take place on Saturday.
The Ashanti Regional Branch of the NPP opened nominations last Sunday for the region to elect its representatives.
The Regional Organiser of the party, Mr Kennedy K. Kankam, told the Daily Graphic that already, the regional executive had selected five out of their members and was waiting for the remaining five to be elected on Saturday to complete the full complement of 10 for the region.
Under the constitution of the party, every five constituencies in the region had the opportunity to have one person to represent them on the national council. With 47 constituencies, the region is entitled to 10 slots.
As stipulated by the constitution, 50 per cent of the total regional representatives will come from the elected regional executives, while the remaining 50 per cent will be elected from the members of the party on Saturday.
Asked those who were eligible to vote, Mr Kankam said all constituency executives, all founding members, representatives from tertiary institutions and special organs and patrons of the party could vote.
Mr Kankam made it clear that the region should have conducted the election earlier this year.
According to him, it would be organised by the Electoral Commission (EC) officials in the region.
Explaining further, Mr Kwabena Adjei Agyepong, the party’s General Secretary explained that the Ashanti and two other regions had a problem with the composition of their members of the National Council members.
He said for the Ashanti Region, only three out of the 10 members came from the elected executive which frowned in the face of the dictates of the party’s constitution and that when the issues were raised, the regional leaders agreed to address the anomaly.
Earlier, the NPP regional chairmen disclosed that they would organise a delegates’ conference to elect new representatives to the National Council of the party.
The 10 regional chairmen resolved to organise regional delegates conference across the country on June 29 to elect representatives to the National Council.
A former party Constituency Chairman of the Central Tongu Constituency in the Volta Region, Mr David Hoezame, filed a writ challenging the status of the party’s National Council as presently constituted.
He claims the Afoko-led administration had failed to reconstitute the National Council after it took office in April 2014, thereby breaching the NPP constitution.
He is thus seeking an order restraining the party from going ahead with congress to elect a presidential candidate on December 6 because the National Council, which approved it, was illegally constituted.
The Upper West Regional Chairman of the NPP, Alhaji Abubakar Abdul Rahaman, in a statement, said the conventional way of appointing representatives must change.
“There was a conventional way of doing it but now somebody is in court for us to go by the constitution so we want to do exactly what is in the constitution so that we do not have the problem of antagonising one another.”
He added that nominations were opened and encouraged interested persons to pick forms.