“Presidential Candidate for 2000…Electoral College for NPP”, is the screaming headline on the front page of the Statesman. The Accompanying story says an electoral college to be responsible for sieving Presidential aspirants of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) before the National Congress to elect the Presidential Candidate, has been proposed. This forms part of a process of constitutional review by the party as it approaches its Annual Delegates’ Conference scheduled for November 29, this year. Under the proposal, a 120-member Electoral College comprising the 61 Members of Parliament, National Executive Committee members and other groups like Youth and Women’s wings and Young Executive Forum will convene after the final list of Presidential aspirants has emerged. Using defined criteria, it will quiz the aspirants and decide on their fate by voting to elect three out of the number who will then be given official approval to vie for the Presidential candidacy by touring the country and canvassing the support of the constituencies. GRi
In another front page story the Statesman reports that Professor Albert Adu Boahen, has been awarded the 1997 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa for his book “Mfantsipim and the Making of Ghana: A Centenary History 1879 – 1976. The Statesman says Prof. Adu Boahen, an eminent historian and the NPP flagbearer in the 1992 general elections, will receive the 10,000 dollars award on November 7 during the Uganda Book Week in Kampala. GRi
