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Hon. Paul Collins Appiah Ofori, a senior member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has backed calls for an early election of the party's flagbearer before electing other executives of the party. A proposal to choose the flagbearer before voting for other national and regional executives takes place, which is a clear deviation from the norm, has been met with stiff opposition from other leaders of the party, such as, Hon. Asamoah Boateng, the former Member of Parliament for Mfantsiman West, who described the move as an attempt to hijack the party by a bloc within the national executives. ��I can tell you [that] what they are trying to do is to take us to a special delegates conference, they have thought through their thing and they want to push it through by �hey hey hey this is my Kingdom shut up� and then we go�, ASamoah Boateng claimed. But, P.C. Appiah Ofori is of the view that an early election of a Presidential candidate would afford the party the time and opportunity to campaign effectively. According to the out-spoken former MP, it is very crucial for the NPP to hit the ground running by first electing a presidential candidate because the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has the advantage of being the incumbent and therefore have a lot of resources at their disposal. ��the NDC has DCE�s on the ground who are projecting their party. They have on the ground Regional Ministers who are already on the ground. And are you waiting for them to cover all the grounds before you begin campaigning? You are waiting eh! Already, your opponents are in government and they have the resources. �These District Chief Executives (DCE) receive the Common Fund allocated to the districts and therefore have the advantage of moving around the district, with state vehicles and fuel. Who would the DCE�s be working for whiles on tour at the constituencies? If we wait till the eleventh hour, they would have finished laying the foundation and we would be the losers,� P. C. Appiah Ofori argued. Speaking in a telephone interview on Adom FM, P. C. Appiah Ofori, who is the former Member of Parliament for the Asikuma-Odobeng-Brakwa constituency, further opined that if the proposal is going to be taken on board, then, there should be an amendment to the party�s constitution. There is a school of thought that holds the view that a timely NPP flagbearer election could eliminate the acrimony and rancor that characterizes such contests. They argue that, such divisions have a bearing on the fortunes of the NPP in general elections and could be eradicated by having early elections and affording aggrieved parties the time to bury the hatchet.