Controversy over expansion of Electoral College

More supporters express their opinion
Posted: The Chronicle } Monday, March 23, 2009

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The debate over whether to amend the Constitution of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to expand its Electoral College or maintain the status quo is gradually generating a lot of interest with proposals coming from various stakeholders in the party.
One school of thought, including Samuel Awuku, a member of the New Juaben-South constituency of the party are pushing for the party to maintain the provisions in the constitution with a few changes that could give automatic voting rights to some key members of the party, the Diaspora Forum of the NPP holds a different view, advocating for the expansion of the Electoral College to include all paid-up members of the party.
Latest in the series of proposals forwarded to the leadership of the party is that of the all-powerful NPP Diaspora Forum, whose influence in the party cannot be underestimated.
Somewhere last week, the group sent one of such proposals to the party’s Asylum Down headquarters through Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy.
In their proposal, the Diasporans who have a strong membership base have asked that the party’s constitution be amended to make provision for ‘one-man one-vote’. According to them, this would not only make the party more democratic but also make it richer, whilst reducing the incidence of corruption that is often associated with primaries. To Dr. Kennedy, all the three things are important, stressing that “It will generate more money for the party, because if you are not paid-up you can’t vote.”
In an interview with the paper, he noted -“obviously if 100,000 people are voting in your Presidential primaries, it is better than 2,000 people, making it more democratic.”
He further emphasised that this has the tendency of eliminating corruption in the party’s primaries since it gets the figures beyond the drivable number.
The Diaspora Forum have thus proposed an amendment of Article 3 of the party’s constitution, which reads -“Any person who desires to become a member of the party may enrol for membership in any Parliamentary constituency where the person resides or hails from, in any overseas branch”, to include “at any TESCON, at the Regional office where he hails from, through the internet, at the National office or at any other place that the National Executives may designate from time to time.”
They have also asked that the constitution be amended to give certain rights to those of them living in the Diaspora. The Diasporans have thus proposed that during the national delegates conference, “all overseas branches shall be entitled to at least 25 voting delegates to be apportioned amongst Diaspora branches based on the distribution of paid-up members”, with “two representatives of the Diaspora on the national executive committee who shall be appointed by the National Chairman with the advice and consent of Diaspora members.”
Further, the group is also asking for a “foreign desk representative/operative of the party shall be appointed by the National Executives upon the recommendation of the Diaspora”, with another proposal for the party’s National annual delegates conference/congress to be attended by at least 25 delegates from the Diaspora, all the party’s Members of Parliament, and ten TESCON delegates.
For this reason, the group has among others proposed the amendment of Article 4 (I) of the party’s Constitution which reads “There shall be kept in the office of each constituency a register of members” to become “there shall be kept in each Regional office a register of members, by Constituency and TESCON members in that Region, by institution. The National Secretariat shall keep a register of all members, Constituency, Region, Institution and overseas branch as the case may be.”
Samuel Awuku however believes that no matter how good the idea for expansion of the Electoral College might sound, it was likely to affect the fortunes of the party. He is of the opinion that the proposal for an expansion is none but a populist proposal, which would have serious future consequences for the party if finally adopted. His argument was that any increase in the size of the Electoral College would further give advantage to the rich and wealthy candidates, thereby engendering corruption.
For him, an expansion of the Electoral College could lead to high cost of running campaigns since candidates will have no choice but run huge advertisements and rallies in all constituencies in order to disseminate their messages to the delegates whilst discussing confidential party matters in the open, stressing that this will provide enough ammunition to their political opponents, especially those in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), to use against them.
Apart from spending heavily on rallies and adverts, he noted that candidates will also have to spend heavily on Chiefs and other dignitaries during this kind of campaign, emphasizing that this cannot be supported by the candidates with small campaign budgets, thereby defeating the very notion that this will help kill ‘moneycracy’ in the game.
Whilst admitting that it might be attractive to increase the size of the Electoral College by increasing the number of delegates from the overseas branches, who are currently entitled to only one delegate per branch, Sammy Awuku argued that these are enlightened and resourceful people who will pay for their trips to and from Ghana at their own expense.
He was thus confident that these are not only discerning people but generally cannot be bribed to change their minds, therefore “fifty (50) delegates per branch would not hurt, looking at the kind of support they give to the party”, he said. He added that other generally enlightened groups could be identified and enfranchised, citing TESCON branches in the various tertiary institutions.
Under the current circumstance, he noted that it will be strategically suicidal to open the party up for further damage, expressing the hope that the Constitutional Review Committee will come up with more innovative ways in expanding the Electoral College, than the idea of all card bearing members being granted voting rights since it has future repercussions.