Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has dropped a bomb shell regarding events leading up to the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) parliamentary primaries.
According to the NPP big wig who is also the Member of Parliament for the Suame Constituency, some party leaders requested for cars and lands as prerequisites for allowing party members to contest in Parliamentary primaries. Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu condemned this attitude and entreated the party to address such issues.
Speaking at a leadership engagement with the Parliamentary Press Corps on Wednesday, February 7, 2024, he noted that, “You have people coming to you to tell you that buy a car for us before we vote for you. Especially the leadership of the parties, they ask for cars before they allow you to contest, even land…we should be real.”
The Member of Parliament for Suame further recommended that political parties revisit such traditions, proposing a period of introspection to potentially phase out these requirements.
Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu emphasized the importance of transitioning towards a system akin to those observed in mature democracies or broadening the scope of voting privileges to include all registered party members.
“My own proposition is that the parties should introspect and perhaps scrap this thing as it is in established democracies…If we want to continue to live with this communist arrangement then, we will perhaps have to go further downstream to enable every card-bearing member of the party to vote,” he said.
Furthermore, the Majority Leader warned against indifference among Members of Parliament who were unsuccessful in their Parliamentary primaries, underscoring the significance of remaining actively involved in parliamentary affairs.