The governing New Patriotic Party’s National Executive Council (NEC) is expected to meet tomorrow Tuesday, April 14, 2020 to decide on the way forward with the party’s presidential and parliamentary primaries.
The NPP had planned to hold parliamentary primaries in areas where it has sitting Members of Parliament on April 25, 2020.
The presidential primary was also scheduled to take place on the same day. But following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus which is fast spreading in Ghana and all over the globe, all public gatherings have been banned in the country by President Nana Akufo-Addo as part of measures to prevent the spread of the disease.
Due to this, the decision to hold the party’s primaries in a few weeks’s time is shaky. The NPP has 169 sitting Members of Parliament out of the total 275 seats in parliament.
The party has already held primaries for orphan constituencies; areas that did not have sitting Members of Parliament.
Nomination fee for the parliamentary primaries was pegged at GH¢20,000 and an additional GH¢200,000 for filing of forms.
The leadership of the party also charged all aspiring parliamentary candidates other than the sitting Members of Parliament a “Party Development Fee of GH¢30,000”. Nominations were opened on January 20, 2020 and closed on Thursday, February 20.
President Akufo-Addo also filed his nomination forms to contest in the NPP’s presidential elections.
He is expected to contest unopposed as he was the only one to have picked forms and submitted same as at Thursday, February 20, the deadline for filing of nominations.
Source: Fiilafmonline/CitiNews
