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NPP Suspends Opening Of Nominations

The NPP has postponed opening of nominations for parliamentary candidates in the 2016 election.

Chairman of the NPP, Paul Afoko

The leadership of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has suspended opening of nominations for parliamentary candidates in the 2016 election.

This was due to some new proposals received by the National Executive Council from some agitated youth protesting the action of the NPP to bar males from contesting against the party's female incumbent MPs.

The party's National Executive Committee, NEC among others, took a decision to bar males from contesting against the party's female incumbent MPs, an affirmative fiat that seeks to improve women's participation in Parliament.

But the move has faced strong opposition with angry party supporters from across the country describing it as undemocratic. Others have also condemned the NEC's decision to reserve some twelve seats in the Greater Accra Region specifically for only Ga indigenes.

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Agitated members have thus protested in some parts of the country  to register their displeasure.

Although some leading party members have endorsed the move, political analysts have cautioned that the affirmative action move could affect the party's chances in the 2016 elections.

They have proposed the party uses dialogue instead of making it compulsory through directives.

Pollster Ben Ephson has however called on the NPP to reserve 50 parliamentary seats for women who will contest in their various constituencies.

He said the should give true meaning to its announced affirmative action policy if it reserved 50 of its 120 safe parliamentary seats for women aspirants.

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In Mr Ephson’s view, the policy, in its current form, which bars male aspirants from contesting the party’s only 16 female MPs, is not an affirmative action policy in its true sense.

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