The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has scrapped an initial plan to hold primaries for sitting Members of Parliament (MPs) in January 2020 and will now be held on April 25, 2020.
The presidential primaries will also be held on the same date following sitting MPs kick against an initial January 2020 date and insisted that the date was not favourable because it was impossible for them to undertake their duties in Parliament and concurrently campaign for the primaries.
John Boadu, the General Secretary of NPP, made this known after an emergency National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held in Accra on Monday, the party’s NEC changed that decision, however, warned that no aspirant is allowed to campaign until nominations are opened.
“Ahead of the primaries, the party is cautioning prospective aspirants to desist from all forms of campaign activity until nominations are duly opened else they risk being disqualified for flouting party directives, NEC will, at the appropriate time, come out with detailed rules, regulations guidelines and modalities for the conduct of the primaries.
“The party will also hold parliamentary primaries in the remaining ‘orphan constituencies’ that were excluded from the nationwide primaries held on September 28, 2019, due to some outstanding matters which have now been resolved and the primaries for the outstanding constituencies will be held on Saturday, October 26, 2019.
“A non-refundable nomination fee for aspirants will be GH¢20,000 whilst the filing fee is GH¢
200,000, even if it is only one candidate, we still must go to a national congress to acclaim who the candidate is becausePresident Nana Akufo-Addo, who won the 2016 elections on the ticket of the NPP has not indicated whether he will seek a second term.
“The party has already held primaries for constituencies that do not have sitting Members of Parliament, I will urge aspirants to be wary of the party’s rules, regulations, guidelines, modalities and directives between now and when nominations are officially opened.
“Until nominations for the primaries are open, members of our party must be cautious and not do anything that goes contrary to the directives, rules, regulations, guidelines and modalities of the party until nominations are open, no member of the party is expected to start campaigning,” Mr Boadu warned. -myjoyonline.com
