Crossroads In NPP! �Over Early Flag Bearer Congress

Even before the dust has settled after the election of the national executive officers to lead the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the next four years, a heated argument has broken out over whether or not the party should have an early congress to elect its flag bearer. The argument in clearly cast between those who support an early congress, and those who insist that the party should concentrate on building its structures. The current national chairman Mr. Paul Afoko and his General Secretary Kwabena Agyepong spoke a lot about building and resourcing party structures whilst on campaign, whilst a key Nana Addo supporter, Gabby Asare Otchere Darko, seems to be one of those who believe that an early congress would be healthy for the NPP. Writing yesterday as part of an ongoing debate on this thorny matter, Mr. Asare Otchere Darko stated thus; �The argument that was used by the Akufo-Addo campaign team in 1998 and the Alan team in 2010 has resurfaced again. It goes like this: forget about the flagbearership for now and let the new executives focus on strengthen the structures of the party first.� He said that the proposition sounded �so sexy�. �But, it is really the argument of those who believe in miracles. Those who think procrastination can conjure victory,� he lamented. Going on, Mr. Otchere Darko said that the key issue is this: �were these same structures not strong enough to hold all the various elections until April 12? Was it not the same structures that elected them? So why should it be different now?� He said that he design of that school of thought is to delay the inevitable as much as possible with the hope that heaps of negative campaign can be mounted against the front runner to chip and chip away his support base in the hope that the majority of the over 140,000 delegates would have turned against him. �But, if the trend of post April 12 discussions on this platform alone is anything to go by then that building or strengthening of structures efforts would by all means be plagued by, disrupted by or dominated by who wins the flagbearership. On a scale, I believe the net gain would be more negative than positive. �Strengthening of structures require money. If that is the priority I do not think any of us can argue against it. My question will then be: is getting the flagbearership done not a major part of strengthening structures? Should it be mutually exclusive to electing a flagbearer?� he said. He challenged those who make the argument of building structures to tell all the full details of what that task entails. �Invariably, much of it would be about raising money by a party and for a party caught in the heat of an internal leadership battle,� he said. �In any event December 7, 2014, is not that far away. Let us allow the new executives to settle in and tell us what their plans are. We must grant them that but they should take on board as many views as helpful. What the NEC and National Council of the NPP must consider is for how long would they endure the spectacle of the party tearing itself apart? What is in the ultimate interest of a party preparing to win power in 2016� he concluded.