A former member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Solomon Owusu, has rubbished the party’s decision to expand its electoral college for internal elections, saying the changes wouldn’t bring any difference.
He believes the party’s performance during its eight years in government is what matters to Ghanaians, not the inclusion of more party members in their internal elections.
According to him, who leads the party’s front is much more important than the number of people who get him elected.
On TV3’s BigIssue segment of the NewDay morning show Wednesday, August 27, 2025, Mr. Owusu admonished the party to consider the personality of those seeking to lead the NPP, rather than the number of people who will get them elected.
“It’s not just a matter of expanding the register. It’s a matter of who is leading the party, the kind of ideals and principles, and how people view the person.”
The communications team member of the Movement for Change held that less than 2,000 people elected John Kufuor in the 1998 delegates’ conference in Sunyani, the Bono regional capital, and went on to win the general election, “so it doesn’t matter whether you’re expanding to one million.”
He wants the NPP to concentrate on what caused their defeat and work towards it, highlighting the poor performance of their immediate past administration, where the government took some unpopular decisions that, he says, have not been forgotten by Ghanaians.
“If you expand the delegate system and the issue that led to your electoral defeat…how is the expansion of this delegate system going to erase from the minds of the Ghanaian that indeed Nana Akufo-Addo used US$97 million together with Dr. Mahmoud Bawumia, and all those in there, to dig a hole? How is it going to erase that perception?” he asked.
His comments follow the closing of nominations by the party for its flag bearer aspirants tomorrow, Thursday, August 28, 2025, with the presidential primary expected to be conducted on January 31, 2025.
The party’s highest decision-making conference, during its last meeting to decide on the date for the primary, voted to expand the electoral college by 40 per cent.
This effectively expanded the party’s electoral college, adding more than 60,000 polling station executives to the existing 220,000, enlarging the size of the voters to more than 280,000.
This means all former Members of Parliament (MPs), former parliamentary candidates, former Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs), card-holding former ministers and deputy ministers, as well as former regional, constituency and branch executives will participate in the election of the flag bearer in January 2026.
However, delegates at the polling station, constituency and regional levels, who are now part of the enlarged electoral college, will not be eligible to vote in the January 2026 election when the party goes to elect a flag bearer for the 2028 general election.
This is because the election of those officers will be done after March 2026, following the conclusion of the current tenure of the polling station, constituency and regional level executives.
Background
The nine-member Constitution Amendment Committee, led by Frank Davies, was formed by the National Council of the party to review and propose amendments to the party’s constitution.
The committee members include the Deputy Minority Leader and MP for Asokwa, Patricia Appiagyei; MP for Ofoase Ayiribi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah; a Deputy General Secretary of the NPP, Dr Antoinette Tsiboe-Darko, the Volta Regional Chairman of the NPP, and Makafui Woanyah.
The rest are a former Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Diana Asonaba Dapaah; a former MP for Ablekuma Central, Ebenezer Nartey, and a medical officer, Dr Ekua Amoakoh.
Mr. Iddi Muhayu-Deen served as secretary to the committee.
The committee’s mandate included identifying provisions of the party’s constitution that require amendments to give effect to the recommendations of the Mike Oquaye Election Review Committee; working on the recommendations of the 2021 Constitutional Review Committee, chaired by Alexander Afenyo-Markin, the Minority Leader, and receiving proposals for constitutional amendments from party members and identifiable groups.
The committee was also tasked to categorise proposals under various Articles and Clauses for ease of reference, and make appropriate recommendations to guide the debate at the National Annual Delegates Conference.
The committee’s report was consequently tabled in amendment motions, which were the subject of the votes at the party’s delegates conference on Saturday, July 19, 2025.
