The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Director of Elections, Evans Nimako, has said the party rejects the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the delegate system for internal party elections.
Evans Nimako argued that the Supreme Court’s decision will impose a significant financial burden on political parties.
According to Evans Nimako, the NPP believes the delegate system is an integral part of Ghana’s democratic architecture.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Midday News on Wednesday, August 5, Evans Nimako stated, “This issue of the judgment by the Supreme Court is something that the New Patriotic Party did not really support because we knew that if you want to ensure the growth of democracy, you need to have viable political parties. And the issue of delegateship is part of democracy”.
“The other twist is that if you do not have the right legal framework, you are likely to open the floodgates and allow the creation and formation of political parties”, he cautioned.
“The question that we need to ask is: what does the judgment seek to kill? It is important for us to assess the judgment and follow the reasoning of the Supreme Court”, he stated.
“In the face of it, this is going to be a huge burden on political parties”, he stressed.
Also, Kofi Bentil, a private legal practitioner, has said the Supreme Court decision on the delegates system will create more absurdities and problems.
According to Kofi Bentil, Ghana does not have a system to properly deal with universal membership voting in party primaries.
He argued that the Supreme Court ruling could ensure that NPP people do not vote en masse for one candidate in NDC Primaries and therefore elect someone NDC people actually don’t like.
In a Facebook post reacting to the Supreme Court decision wrote, “Ghana is still a developing nation. We dont have the systems to properly deal with universal membership voting in party primaries.
The Ghana Card is the best shot we have towards creating a system which can support this but it is still not fully deployed for this purpose.
If we want universal party membership to vote here are some simple questions.
1. What systems do we have to certify that Mr B belongs to Party A and will only vote in their primaries?
2. How do we ensure that NPP people do not vote en-mass for one candidate in NDC Primaries and therefore elect someone NDC people actually dont like?
A cardinal rule in Judgments is that a good judgment avoids creating absurdities. You can therefore tell a bad judgment by the absurdities it creates.
This judgment will work more absurdities and create more problems than it solves”.
In another post, Kofi Bentil further argued that representation cannot be unconstitutional, saying, “We elect parliamentarians to represent the people and make laws for the people.
We select Judges (other democracies elect) to dispense justice on behalf of the people.
We elect the President to represent and guide the state on behalf of the people.
Without representation, democracy cannot work because we all cannot all gather and do all these together!!!
ALL DEMOCRACIES HAVE REPRESENTATION !! It cannot be unconstitutional!!!
If we want everyone to do all these, it is theoretically possible in this day and age, but is it appropriate or even wise??
Representation cannot be unconstitutional!!”.
His comments follow the Supreme Court declaring the delegate system used by political parties unconstitutional.
The apex court has ordered all political parties to ensure all their registered members participate in the selection of presidential and parliamentary candidates.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-2 majority decision, ruled that all political parties must put in place mechanisms to allow every member in good standing to participate in the election of presidential and parliamentary candidates.
The apex court gave all political parties one year from the date of the judgment to comply with the directive.
The Supreme Court ruling effectively abolishes the long-standing delegate system, under which only selected delegates were permitted to vote in presidential and parliamentary primaries.
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