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The Member of Parliament (MP) for Subin Constituency in the Ashanti Region, Eugene Boakye Antwi, has suggested to the newly-elected leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to elect the flagbearer of the party early to afford the party and the flag bearer enough time to prepare for the crucial Election 2024.
“Going by experience, my view is that let us hold the delegates as early as March next year to give the party and flag bearer five months to campaign across the country so that by August when Parliament is on recess, we vote for both parliamentary and presidential to get it off the way,” he asserted.
There are fresh calls within the NPP for an early congress to elect the flagbearer of the party ahead of the 2024 elections but the party is yet to announce modalities for the election of the person to lead the NPP into the next elections.
Several names of bigwigs in the party including Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia; Alan Kyerematen, Minister of Trade and Industry; Joe Ghartey, MP for Essikado-Ketan Constituency in the Western Region; Kennedy Agyapong, MP for Assin Central Constituency in the Central Region and Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto have come up as persons who may contest the flagbearer position.
According to Mr Antwi, the most important issue was for the leadership of the party to realise President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo would not be a candidate in 2024 and whoever the candidate would be at that time is the one they should be aiming at selecting, partnering the president in terms of regional tours he would be embarking.
He recounted how late the party elected its flagbearer prior to the 2008 elections which affected the outcome of the election results and for that reason the party must not delay in electing its flag bearer for the elections due to what happened to then candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in 2008.
“Candidate Nana Akufo-Addo had only six months to campaign and all that time then President Mills and then Vice President Mahama had split up the country into two and going various ways which affect us so the early election of the flagbearer has the tenacity to affect outcome of the elections since it affords the party enough time to campaign,” Mr Antwi affirmed.
He pointed out that the flagbearer needed six months before the end of the year for any housekeeping duties to be dealt with and hit the ground running with one year to campaign to realise positive results.
