The election countdown is only 3 months away, politicians are busy crisscrossing the country to sell their manifestos, but do we understand the political party structures? don’t be confused by the ballot paper.
Lately, meetings of delegates and party officials have been held under different umbrellas, the National Delegates Conference (NDC), the National Executive Committee (NEC), the Party Secretariat, and the National Governing Council (NGC) in the political structure. let’s break it down.
The National Executive Committee (NEC), a party organ that runs daily activities for the party, comprises 10-15 people who include; the Chair of the party, Secretary-General, Organising Secretary, Treasurer, Youth and Women leagues leaders, the party leader, and their deputy.
NEC, organizes everything for the party for example approval of budgets, paying bills, hiring and firing of workers as well as coming up with party agendas.
Secondly, we have National Governing Council, which is the second in command organ for a party, it approves the decisions made by the NEC before presenting them to the NDC, at this stage amendments can be done, and additional information, so everything discussed at the NEC, goes through this body before it is presented to the NDC. An example is where the UDA party first had their NGC before NDC, which took place the same day.
The National Delegates Conference is the final decision-making body for a party. The members of this are the party members who include party members at the grass-root level, at the ward, constituency, basically, all members of the NEC belong to the NDC.
Decisions made by the NDC are final and cannot be overturned by anyone other than the delegates themselves, this brings us to a case of parties forming coalitions, it is at this stage where agreements were approved and then leadership authorized, for instance, the current dilemma faced by coalitions is selecting suitable presidential running mate, which will only be decided at the NDC.
The NDC exists because the political amendment act allowed the formation and recognition of coalitions as political parties, hence the endorsement of a joint presidential candidate.
Secretariat implements decisions made by all other party organs, the NEC, NGC, and NDC. It conducts facilitation, set up party meetings, and handles logistics and communication of a party, the members are employees of the party.
Presidential candidates are now expected to present their running mate before May 16, 2022, which was extended from 28th April deadline due to the dilemma among the coalition members,with the party structure we hope they will choose the right people.