Asiedu Nketiah: “All-Member Primaries will cost millions” – Government must pay the bill
National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, has warned that complying with the Supreme Court’s order to abolish the delegates system will run into millions of cedis — and political parties cannot shoulder it alone.
Speaking on JoyNews on Tuesday, August 4, the NDC Chairman, popularly called “General Mosquito”, said the Court’s directive is democratic in principle, but financially unsustainable for parties unless the state takes over the cost.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-2 majority decision on July 29, declared the delegates system used by political parties to elect presidential and parliamentary candidates unconstitutional. The Court ordered all parties to amend their constitutions to allow every member in good standing to vote directly in primaries.
For Asiedu Nketiah, that is familiar territory. He took the NDC down that road before.
He recalled the party’s 2014 internal elections when the NDC expanded voting beyond delegates to include all members. The goal was simple: deepen internal democracy and give the grassroots a real voice.
But the logistics were brutal.
“There are certain electoral areas that are made up of clusters of villages,” he explained. “In that case you will have more polling stations in the villages so that you don’t ask people to travel.” The result: the NDC opened more than 8,000 polling stations across the country. That is where the costs exploded. According to Asiedu Nketiah, the Electoral Commission treated it as a private party affair.
“The EC took the view that this was a private election whose costs must be borne exclusively by the party. The Electoral Commission recruited about four polling officials for each polling station, and we had to pay them and pay all the costs of the materials. The Electoral Commission didn’t contribute a pesewa.”
By the end of the exercise, the party had spent close to GH¢14 million in 2014 money.
Now with the Supreme Court compelling every party to do the same, the NDC Chairman says government must step in. “My expectation is that even though the system is good, since we are being compelled to help citizens exercise their civic and democratic rights, it sits very well if you ask the state to budget for this exercise so that the Electoral Commission can conduct it free of charge.
“His argument is straightforward: if parties are being forced by law to expand democracy internally, then the exercise should be treated like a public good and funded like national elections.
The ruling has thrown all political parties into a scramble to redesign their internal election machinery ahead of 2028. For the NDC, the memory of that GH¢14 million bill in 2014 is still fresh — and Asiedu Nketiah is making it clear he does not want a repeat without state support.
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