The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is finalising the list of individuals to participate in the Special Delegates Conference on August 26, 2023.

The primary role of the delegates is to trim the number of presidential aspirants to five ahead of the November Congress to elect a presidential candidate for the 2024 elections.

Speaking to JoyNews, the General Secretary of the NPP, Justin Kodua Frimpong said, “If you go to Article 13, it states clearly that after vetting and we have more than five aspirants, then the party goes into what we refer to as special delegates college to trim the number from whatever figure to five.”

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He said NEC is expected to finalise the delegates list by this weekend, July 21.

“We are in the final stage of doing the compilation. On top of my head, we are not going to exceed a thousand, so between 900 to 1,000 delegates will form the special electoral college.

“When you talk about the founding members, some have died, so we have to take their names out and again we also have to look at past national officers who have also died, so we are trying to orgainse those things. I am sure before the weekend, we should have the final list for the special delegates’ election,” he added.

According to the NPP, the names of the qualified aspirants will be published by July 21 followed by balloting on July 24, 2023.

The first notice of the poll will be July 25. If the qualified candidates exceed five, a special electoral college will be held on August 26, 2023, to reduce the number to five.

The first balloting of the final five qualified candidates will take place on August 28 with the final notice of poll on August 31, and the national congress will elect a flagbearer on November 4. In the event of a run-off, it will be held on November 11, 2023.