National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, has expressed concern over the financial burden that could arise from scrapping the delegates system for the election of presidential and parliamentary candidates.
Speaking in an interview, Mr Asiedu Nketiah reflected on the NDC’s experience during its 2014 internal elections, when the party adopted an expanded voting system that allowed all members to participate.
He noted that although the approach strengthened internal democracy by giving every member a voice, it also imposed high financial costs on the party.
According to him, implementing the system required the establishment of thousands of polling stations nationwide to ensure members, especially those in remote communities, could vote without travelling long distances.
“There are certain electoral areas that are made up of clusters of villages, and in that case you will have more polling stations in the villages so that you don’t ask people to travel, and so we ended up opening more than 8,000 polling stations and the Electoral Commission took the view that this was a private election whose costs must be borne exclusively by the party.
“The Electoral Commission recruited about four polling officials for each polling station and we had to pay them and pay all the costs of the materials. The Electoral Commission didn’t contribute a pesewa, and so in the end, in those days, we spent close to GH¢14 million in 2014.
“So my expectation is that even though the system is good, since we are being compelled to help citizens exercise their civic and democratic rights, it sits very well if you ask the state to budget for this exercise so that the Electoral Commission can conduct it free of charge,” he said on JoyNews.
His remarks come in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling declaring the delegates system used by political parties to elect their presidential and parliamentary candidates unconstitutional.
In a 5–2 majority decision delivered on July 29, the apex court ruled that the delegates system employed by political parties for the selection of presidential and parliamentary candidates violates the Constitution.
The Court consequently directed all political parties to put in place arrangements that will allow every member in good standing to vote directly in the selection of their presidential and parliamentary candidates.
