The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) National Treasurer, Dr. Charles Dwamena (aka Dr. China) has launched a scathing attack on a proposal by former General Secretary Mr. Kwabena Agyei Agyepong, which advocates for a “top-down” selection process for the party’s presidential candidate.
Dr. China condemned the suggestion as a dangerous affront to the NPP’s deeply entrenched participatory democracy.
Mr. Agyepong’s proposal, Dr. Dwamena stressed, is not a mere procedural tweak but a fundamental assault on the party’s grassroots architecture. The NPP’s current electoral framework, he argued, is a multi-tiered system built from the polling station executives upwards, through electoral area coordinators, constituency, regional, and national executives, to include external branch leaders and TESCON representatives. Each tier is democratically elected by the level below, ensuring legitimacy flows from the party’s base.
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“To alter this is to amputate the very limb that gives the party its footing,” Dr. China warned. He argued that initiating presidential selection from the apex would necessitate abandoning the internal democratic ladder flagbearers have historically climbed.
Dr. China’s warning
Dr. Dwamena cautioned of the legal and structural ramifications, explaining that even a minor expansion of the electoral college – such as increasing polling station executives from five to six – would constitutionally require comprehensive, sequential elections across all party levels. “The electoral college that elects the flagbearer is a culmination of this democratic progression and any new configuration must follow due process to be valid,” he stated,
Critically, Dr. China stressed that the current electoral college’s mandate is expiring. “It would therefore be constitutionally and morally untenable for it to preside over the selection of a new presidential candidate,” he said, emphasizing that fresh internal elections are an imperative, not an option.
He characterized Mr. Agyepong’s top-down suggestion as ‘tantamount to staging an undemocratic coronation masquerading as reform,’ which would violate both the letter and spirit of the NPP’s constitution and its tradition of representative inclusion.
“This is a fundamental clash of philosophies between expedient control and participatory legitimacy. To ignore them is to dismantle the house the party has so painstakingly built,” Dr. Dwamena declared and insisted the NPP’s strength lies with its base, particularly the polling station executives.
Dr. China’s denunciation was unequivocal: the top-down approach ‘betrays both process and principle,’ threatening to erode internal trust, marginalize the grassroots, and destabilize the party’s democratic foundation.
“The way forward is not to circumvent the system but to reinforce it. And that reinforcement begins not at the top but at the polling station. That is where the soul of the NPP resides,” he urged.
He warned that the top-down approach must be rejected ‘not with whispers, but with the thunderous clarity of conviction’ because democracy, once fractured at its foundation, seldom holds together at its summit.
By Osumanu Al-Hassan/thenewsbulletin24.com