State should fund party primaries if delegates system is scrapped – NDC Chairman

NDC National Chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah*, says scrapping the delegates system for electing presidential and parliamentary candidates will come with a huge financial burden on political parties.

Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, August 4, Mr. Asiedu Nketiah referenced the NDC’s 2014 internal elections when the party allowed all members to vote. He said while the move deepened internal democracy, it was extremely expensive to run.

According to him, the party had to set up over 8,000 polling stations nationwide to enable members, especially those in rural areas, to vote without travelling far.

*“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,”* he said.

He explained that the Electoral Commission recruited about four officials per polling station and the party had to pay them, plus all materials and logistics.

*“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,”* he stated.

Mr. Asiedu Nketiah said although the all-member voting system is good, the state should budget for it and task the EC to conduct it free of charge since parties are being compelled to help citizens exercise their democratic rights.

*“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.”*

His comments follow the Supreme Court’s 5–2 ruling on July 29, which declared the delegates system used by political parties to elect presidential and parliamentary candidates unconstitutional.

The Court ordered all political parties to put in place arrangements that allow every member in good standing to vote directly.