Leading New Patriotic Party member and former Senior Minister, Joseph Henry Mensah, has stated that the business of selecting a Presidential candidate to lead the party in the 2008 general elections has nothing to do with the outward physical attributes of the various aspirants, but is all about who has what it takes to first win the 2008 elections, and move ahead to lead the nation to the next level of her development. According to the Statesman newspaper, J.H. Mensah has therefore urged the various presidential hopefuls to do a critical self-assessment to see if they were suitable and capable of the task they are seeking to take upon themselves. Making allusion to the plethora of presidential hopefuls in the party, a situation he disapproved of, Mr Mensah observed that the process of electing a presidential candidate was not a beauty contest, but was about getting somebody to manage the destiny of the millions of people in the country. According to the paper, Mr Mensah, who was giving an exposition on the theme for the NPP's Annual Delegates" Conference held at Koforidua at the weekend said what should engage the attention of the party, especially the presidential hopefuls, were measures which to strengthen the party machinery at all levels. The theme for the conference was "Moving forward in unity.” “The NPP must get into sharp, battle-ready conditions at every level, especially at the grassroots of the 22,000 polling stations. At the end of this year, in accordance with the party’s constitution, we shall hand over this machine and all its resources to the candidate that we choose to lead the party into election 2008. “Until then, the priority is not the person but the message and the machine,” he told the conference. The former Senior Minister was not happy about the tendency of some party activists to make allusions to what some aspirants said or did not say during their university education thirty years ago. “Does that kind of talk win elections? “Some say we need a man with strong muscles. For what? To break stones in the Castle or to have another boxing match in the cabinet room? “Some are said to be charismatic, but that is strictly a problem for them and their wives in chambers. What the NPP needs is a party machine which can keep the power we won in 2000 and a message to inspire the nation.” Mr Mensah, who is also the Member of Parliament for Sunyani East, urged the various aspirants to heed President Kufuor’s caution on peaking too early and the consequences thereof, and to rather concentrate on giving Ghana the best governance it has ever had, as a prelude to election 2008. He lamented that President Kufuor’s advice had not been sufficiently heeded because some of the party’s ambitious colleagues had set-off on a hot aspirant’s campaign which others felt compelled to match. According to the Sunyani East MP, the situation was getting out of hand, “and our party’s image has undoubtedly suffered damage. For, what kind of a united team can the NPP present to this country when not only the eleven players on the field, but also all the reserves on the bench want to be captain?” Expressing worry about the large number of presidential hopefuls in the party, Mr Mensah said what Ghana needs is a disciplined team under outstanding leadership to give the citizenry “top-grade Government, and not the chaos of twenty individual captains”. Turning to the party executives, who had the power to select the presidential candidate, Mr Mensah urged them to place the party’s broad interest above their personal gains, and not to allow “the fruitful visitations” by the aspirants to influence their choice of candidate. “When the time comes, make sure that your delegates to the nomination convention will reflect in their vote not the fruits of these visitations but your honest views about the party leader whom you know and want to follow to victory in 2008,” he stressed. Mr Mensah also touched on some essential conditions that should guide the delegates in selecting their choice of candidate. These include the contributions the person has made towards building the party, whether the person has the ability to win the confidence and votes of the majority of the electorate, especially the swing voters, and whether the rank and file of the party will feel sufficiently enthusiastic about him so as to work their hearts out to ensure victory at the polls. “All of us who will have to work with our future President must be honestly able to vouch before the people of Ghana that he can successfully run an enterprise as difficult, complex and demanding as Ghana Project. “This is not a beauty contest. It is about managing the destiny of an entire people,” he said. Mr Mensah added: “We have all worked together, and we know each other’s contributions, we cannot gamble with the choice of a leader, and surely quality tells.” Source: The Statesman