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The New Patriotic Party�s (NPP) First Vice Chairman for the Western Region, Kwesi Biney has warned of an inherent danger in the �bottom-up� approach to the election of party executives. Mr. Biney, in a statement copied to the National Chairman of the party, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, expressed his misgivings about the supposed �fool-proof� bottom-up elections of party executives as endorsed by the NPP�s National Executive Committee (NEC). According to him, the polling station elections, which are supposed to be supervised by the party�s constituency executives, could easily be compromised for personal gains. He suggested that the NPP should select an independent committee to supervise the selection of polling station executives to prevent the constituency executives from hand-picking their favourites to man the polling stations. �If the Constituency Executives want to contest the elections again, they tend to hand pick their favourites and ensure that other contestants are denied participation so that those favourites once elected will come to vote for them during the Constituency elections. In the process people who are not committed to the polling station work become the executives at the Polling Station thus further making the campaigning much more difficult. The same thing happens through the Constituency elections up to the Regional Elections,� the Chairman warned. �My suggestion to address this situation which aims at fairness is that at the constituency levels, independent committee is put in place to manage and organize the Polling Station elections without the involvement of the Constituency Executives. The same process should follow the Constituency and Regional elections to cut out manipulations by the current executives for future benefits. This is the only way to get the best of officers at the lower levels to manage the party,� he noted. �The problem therefore for me is not the presidential candidate but unpopular parliamentary candidates, who lose their seats in constituencies where we should conveniently win. Even in our strongholds, the fortunes of some parliamentary candidates keep dwindling in election after elections, which affect the total votes for the presidential candidate,� Mr. Biney suggested. �The solution to this is for the party to critically put up an independent body which will do a study on our parliamentary candidates, particularly the sitting MPs before primaries are done for any general elections. There are candidates who can easily win the primaries because they can buy the votes during the primaries in the constituencies, however the general electorate reject them when the general elections are held,� he noted. Unpopular Candidates Citing the case of Ahanta West in the Western Region where he was a former DCE, he said the incumbent MP won the primary by just a vote among five contestants which was his own vote. The MP subsequently lost the main election. �For the first time in Ahanta West, we lost the seat to the NDC in a contested election. Once again there are so many such instances of unpopular candidates who get elected by our electoral college but end up handing down painful defeat to the party which invariably lead to our presidential defeat,� Mr Biney stated. The party, he explained, exists to win political power to implement its plans for the overall good of Ghanaians. �It does not exist to create permanent jobs for any category of its members. The party must have power to persuade an unpopular candidate to step down in the broader interest of the party during an election,� he stressed. �In the case of Efutu, a sitting MP and a Minister lost his seat when the party was in power. This young man comes to recapture the lost seat when we are in opposition. Is the Party learning anything out of that? �This is the time for the party to critically take stock of those we put out there as parliamentary candidates. I bet my life that if the previous MP for Mpohor for example had decided to contest the elections in 2012, we would have lost the seat. A change of the candidate made it possible for us to retain the seat albeit with difficulties,� he emphasized.