NDC pioneered one-member-one-vote system before Supreme Court ruling — Asiedu Nketiah

National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, says the party had already experimented with a universal membership voting system years before the Supreme Court abolished the delegate system in political party presidential and parliamentary primaries.

His comments follow the Supreme Court's recent ruling declaring the delegate system unconstitutional and directing political parties to allow all registered members in good standing to vote in presidential and parliamentary primaries.

Speaking on Accra-based JoyNews' PM Express on Tuesday, August 4, he noted that the NDC became the first political party in Ghana to introduce a universal membership suffrage system for its presidential primaries in 2014, describing it as a successful exercise despite some implementation challenges.

According to him, the party later abandoned the system after internal disagreements over whether to improve it or suspend it.

"It was my initiative to democratize as much as possible the presidential primaries, and I was happy about the outcome in spite of the challenges. I thought that the challenges were things that were not unsurmountable," he stated.

Mr Asiedu Nketiah further asserted that the ruling applies only to the selection of presidential and parliamentary candidates and does not affect ongoing internal party elections to elect party executives.

"The ones we are engaged in now are not affected by the Supreme Court ruling because that is the party as a group deciding how they will select their leadership. So it has nothing to do with the rest of the population," he said.

Mr Asiedu Nketiah said the court's decision was driven by the fact that candidates elected through party primaries eventually occupy national offices and therefore the process leading to their selection should be as democratic as possible.