The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party has disclosed that before an aspiring MP is protected, the party weighs the consequences and benefits for the party.
John Boadu speaking on the Super Morning Show, Monday, explained that it was also done to curb animosity.
He cited an example with Kobina Tahir Hammond who was re-elected for the Adansi Asokwa constituency but was not protected.
Mr Boadu said it is because doing so might have turned out to be detrimental to the party’s performance overall in December.
“If we had insisted and pushed for him to be protected and as a result go unopposed to this challenge, this kind of animosity will linger on not only now and linger on after elections.”
His comments come after over 40 incumbent MPs lost their seats in the party’s Parliamentary primaries on Saturday.
The party’s General Secretary explained that sometimes if the grassroots community in the constituency at a particular time wants a fresh person to manage the constituency, it is better to let them decide who they want to lead them.
“So yes, it is good to be able to protect some of the members but sometimes politically it is in our own interest to allow the candidate to get the kind of legitimacy depending on the kind of dynamics on the ground to be able to run the constituency,” he said.
“It’s not just because the person is a member of parliament we [decide to] protect, if that then we will protect all,” he added. “ The consequences of those protections are sometimes very dire.”
He explained that sometimes making a decision to protect a candidate can result in unresolved primaries.
“The consequences of those protections are sometimes very dire. For example, in the year 2008, only three constituencies were the reasons why Nana AKufo-Addo didn’t become President of Ghana. It arose out of unresolved primaries.”
“We only needed close to 6000 to win the elections in the first round but we couldn’t get it. The skirt and blouse that occasioned by unresolved primaries was enormous and that denied us of victory.
“So [protecting candidates] is not very easy,” he said.
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