Finally, the waiting is over, as the election of the national executives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), had come and gone. And as is to be expected, stock- taking has begun.
Stephen Ntim Ayensu, who has been contesting the chairmanship position of the NPP for 20 years, was finally elected on Sunday.
Justine Frimpong Kodua, popularly known as JFK, a first time contender, defeated John Boadu to emerge as the General Secretary of the party.
Kate Gyamfua, was retained as the National Women’s Organizer, Nana Boakye, nicknamed Nana B, moved up the ladder from the position of National Youth Organizer, to National Organizer, while, Salam Mustapha, was elected as the National Youth Organizer.
Disturbingly, the public space is awash with stories of how the aspirants and delegates, turned the very important exercise of leadership selection into a charade of buying and selling of votes.
As a newspaper, we are concerned that both the aspirants and the delegates seem to have a completely erroneous idea of what internal elections entail, and this unfortunately is a disease that cuts across all the political parties, it is only look pronounced in the New Patriotic Party.
Unfortunately, the emphasis over the years of elections in the country, whether internal party elections or national elections, is on how to share money to influence the electorates. Only a few aspirants, who do not have big war chest, really speak to the challenges of the nation and how to overcome them, most are caught up in the desperation to win elections at all costs to achieve political and financial ends.
What we get as a country, after the process is that the polity is denied the opportunity of having campaigns based on robust debates about how each aspirant perceives the challenges facing their political party and the country, as a whole and how they hope to tackle them.
As a newspaper, we deplore this resort by politicians to reduce the important task of leadership recruitment to a matter of the highest bidder. Ghana deserves better, as it is not for sale.
