The New Patriotic Party (NPP) says its early reorganisation has given it valuable time to prepare deliberately for the 2028 general elections.

Newly elected Third Vice Chairperson Nana Akomea says the early selection of the party’s flagbearer has helped reduce internal tensions and allowed the party to focus on rebuilding.

He said the strategy will be particularly important in constituencies where the NPP has no sitting Member of Parliament.

“We secured for ourselves the blessing of time by doing this reorganisation, selecting the flag bearer 223 years ahead of the elections, and you would see the wisdom in that action has cascaded.”

Nana Akomea said the early election of the party’s leader also contributed to a relatively calm national executive election.

“Look at this election that we did, the national executive. There was not much acrimony. You didn’t have candidates speaking against each other. Everybody just presented their case.”

He said the party had avoided some of the tensions associated with internal elections because the flagbearership contest had already been settled.

“The party is composed because we have a leader who serves as the centre of gravity of the party, and we’ve given that blessing to ourselves by the early election of the leader.”

According to Nana Akomea, the NPP can now concentrate on getting its parliamentary strategy right.

“What we need to do now is to get the parliamentary thing right. There are a lot more orphan constituencies. You don’t want to leave it free for all.”

He said the party’s larger number of orphan constituencies makes early planning necessary.

“Now that we have a bit of time, you can be more deliberate in choosing the people to represent the party in the constituencies.”

Nana Akomea explained that the NPP intends to study the demographic profile of orphan constituencies before candidates invest heavily in campaigns.

“The constituency party will bring us reports about the demography, and they would suggest that for this constituency, if we get a candidate from this demography, it will help us.”

He said the approach could prevent prospective candidates from spending heavily before the party determines what type of candidate is most suitable.

“So when that determination is done early, then somebody who is not from that demography will not go and waste time and go and campaign, spend money, and then later on you decide that, oh, he may not win.”

Nana Akomea stressed that the approach is not entirely new to the NPP.

“In the NPP going to the 2000 elections, we did the same exercise. We had many constituencies with no sitting MPs, and we decided that the coastal area of Accra, for example, should be reserved for Gas. That is profiling, and so on.”

He said the difference now is the scale and the deliberate nature of the exercise.

“So it is not new. Is that we’re going to do it on a scale that is more deliberate, and that is more fulfilling.”