NPP to use independent assessments to identify winnable parliamentary candidates – Bawumia

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, says the party has begun a nationwide search for parliamentary candidates it believes can win seats in the 2028 general elections.

He said the exercise would cover constituencies nationwide and is intended to complement the party’s internal parliamentary primaries by identifying candidates likely to win in the general election.

His comments follow the NPP’s just-ended national executive elections, which resulted in the election of new national executives.

Speaking to some party executives on Sunday, October 4, Dr Bawumia said the NPP also plans to organise its parliamentary primaries as soon as possible to bring its internal elections to an end.

He said the party wants the candidate-selection process to be transparent and ensure that financial strength does not become the main factor in determining who emerges as a parliamentary candidate.

“We want to make the process as transparent as possible. On the parliamentary candidate side, what we are trying to do is to do candidate selection across all the constituencies because some people can win parliamentary primaries. After all, they have money, but they cannot win the election,” he said.

Dr Bawumia cautioned that a candidate’s victory in an internal primary could prove costly if that individual lacks the support needed to win the subsequent general election.

“If you leave it to them to win the primary, but you’ve lost the seat ab initio,” he said.

He disclosed that the NPP intends to commission multiple independent assessments of potential candidates and compare the findings before making its decisions.

“The work on the candidate search is going on, and we’re going to have more than one candidate search from independent sources, and we’ll compare what they are saying,” he said.

Dr Bawumia added that where the assessments identify a candidate considered capable of winning, the party would approach the individual to join the contest.

“If we find out that this is the person who can win, as we see, we’ll persuade that person to come on board,” he said.