Boakye Agyarko, a candidate for the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) flagbearer position, has criticized the organization for the way it conducted the election of super delegates.
He claimed that the purpose of the election is simply to narrow the field of candidates, not to select a winner.
The decision to hold a run-off to choose the final candidate is a waste of time, according to the former Minister for Energy, who was speaking to the media in Koforidua.
“This process is not to select a winner. I was one of the original drafters of this provision out of the Heyman committee. It was never intended to produce a winner.
“It was intended to select five people to represent the party going forward so therefore if after today let say that one person gets hundred percent, there will be a rerun to add four more and if the second rerun only produces another 100% there will be a third rerun. We will rerun until we get five. Why is that?
He continued “the system is intended to produce five people and not declare a winner. So if today three people get positive number and the rest get zero, next week the party is going to run another election to select two to join the three.
“To me, it is a bloody waste of time. There is a more statistical way of doing it to make sure it is done once and for all but be that as it may, it is where we are”.
“Since it is not to produce a winner, the intention out of the Heyman committee which I was a member was not that the special delegates will select a candidate for the party. That mandate is given to the voters who will number 208000 plus. So you cannot have 956 people select for that 200,000 it is illegitimate. The intention of the Heyman committee in the drafting of the provision is that the pruning down is to make the process less chaotic but the five people must proceed therefore to the general population for them to select the leader of the party. That is the process. I hear all manner of speculations either out of ignorance or willful distortion to misinform”.
Agyarko claimed that the election of super delegates was only intended to reduce the number of delegates so that the other 208,000 could make a decision.
Boakye Agyarko and Addai Nimo’s tie prevented the party from getting the fifth candidate, leading to the planned runoff between the two. The Special Delegates Conference was intended to narrow down five of the ten candidates for the final on November 4, 2023.
