Beyond Assin North

As the results trickled in snippets after voting closed in the Assin North by-election a week ago today, it became clear that the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) candidate had crossed the proverbial Rubicon, with Charles Opoku of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) trailing in his wake like a spurned cloud of dry, irksome harmattan dust.

In the end, Quayson of the NDC won with a comfortable 57.56 per cent of the valid votes cast, up from the 55.21 per cent he garnered in the 2020 polls.

 I am happy to bet by the jug of cold, frothy beer I had on Saturday afternoon that Quayson is the only person in the history of this country to have been elected to Parliament, thrown out by the courts and then found his way back into the august house within the lifetime of the same Parliament. 
Quite a revolving door for him, I must say.

Psychological boost

As I predicted last week on this page, the NDC has received a huge psychological boost with this parliamentary victory.

Since the election, my NDC friends have been calling me round the clock, literally dancing on the clouds and doing their best to rub their victory in my stoic, stony face.

Rather than ignore their calls, I have indulged them.

As far as they are concerned, this is a clear sign of victory next year at the general election, and they can smell it in the air already, their adrenaline levels shooting through the roof.

The strong aroma of sweet victory that they are gleefully sniffing is making my friends rather giddy, and one of them even made bold predictions over who will occupy what ministerial portfolio in a John Mahama government come 2025.

I was particularly amused by his bet for Finance Minister. We had a good laugh over it.

It is impossible to begrudge the NDC their win and the excitement and confidence that flow from it.

They are fully entitled to premise their confidence of a December 2024 win on last week’s by-election, even though I still insist that the dynamics of a general election and a by-election are completely different.

But then, in all honesty, had NPP won, there are many from within the party that would have basked in the sunlight of self-assuredness that it was a precursor to ‘breaking the 8’ next year.

That is politics for you. 

Post-mortem

Of course, electoral defeat, even in your opponent’s stronghold where you know you are just going through the motions and are a sacrificial lamb at the political slaughterhouse, is not something to be savoured, even if it is easier to shrug it off. 

t is painful – especially the barbed jokes and jibes on social media, otherwise known  as ‘trolling’.

In the case of Assin North, it is not quite an NDC stronghold as, say, Ketu South or Ho Central.

After all, NPP has won the seat before and in 2020, President Akufo-Addo won the presidential race there by a little over 1,000 votes.

So, in the scheme of things, the loss rankles, especially since there was some belief in political circles that the two parties were neck and neck in the race.

Indeed, the signals ahead of the elections did not look anywhere as dire as the eventual outcome.  

Naturally, there are many, both within and outside the NPP, who have ascribed all manner of reasons for the NPP’s loss in Assin North.

These range from poor campaign strategy to sympathy for Quayson (in light of his citizenship issues), to a largely unmarketed NPP candidate who could not even vote in the constituency, to the general unpopularity of government, among several others.

The truth is likely to be a combination of some or all of these factors.

Perhaps it is a bit early to say authoritatively and precisely what went wrong, given the rawness of it all for the NPP, which has to do its introspection.  

At present one can only speculate pending a credible post-mortem exercise.

The NPP’s statement on the elections, dated June 28, 2023 stated, “The Party views the outcome of the by-election as a wake-up call, prompting us to evaluate our approach, make rational retrospective assessments, and conduct a thorough analysis.”

Beyond the fine words, that is the right thing to do – facing up to some honest, brutal political truths, even if they are uncomfortable and make one squirm.

I hope it happens sooner, rather than later, if the NPP is serious about ‘breaking the 8’.  

Perhaps if the NPP had won the by-election, the second in a row this year, complacency would have set in.
 

Turning tides

The thing about politics is that one day you could be riding on the crest of a high wave, and the next day you could be crawling on the ocean floor.

The important thing, though, is to not despair when you find yourself on the floor. After all, ‘…in a democracy, there are winners and losers, and … we live to fight another day’, to quote President Akufo-Addo in his statement issued to the party faithful following the results.

Many NPP faithful still bristle at the pain of the 2008 electoral defeat when victory seemed so assured, whereas for many NDC supporters, the humiliating 2016 electoral loss, resulting in the dethroning of an incumbent President for the first time, will forever be etched in their souls.

The beauty of it all is that time does tend to have an assuaging effect on these raw emotions, and both parties, in those instances, did live to grow some confidence to fight another election.

Investing emotionally in politics, as in football, requires the tough skin of a hippopotamus, the stamina of a horse and a blood pressure monitor to weather the inevitable painful bouts of defeat and disappointment that are quite standard in both endeavours. 

Battle ahead

There is no point weeping copiously over the milk that was spilled in Assin North.

What is done is done.

The main battle lies ahead, in the 2024 election.

It promises to be a fierce election of titanic proportions, with each side keen to establish a record in the process – the NPP seeking to be the first party to ‘break the 8’, and the NDC aiming to give us a ‘comeback President’.

Neither side can or should take the other for granted.

I am no Hearts of Oak supporter – indeed I am completely ambivalent about what football fans insist is ‘the beautiful game’, and therefore I have no club to support.

But on behalf of the NPP, I am an ardent believer, for political purposes, in the club’s maxim, ‘never say die until all the bones are rotten’. 
Phobia!

Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng
Head, Communications & Public Affairs Unit,
Ministry of Energy,
Accra.

E-mail: rodboat@yahoo.com