My Mother’s party’s people — What next?

My diehard, NPP supporting dear mother, is still grieving the party’s recent defeat in the 2024 election and has been eager to see how the party makes “sense” of the loss.

She fully supported the idea to form an election review committee chaired by former Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Mike Oquaye.

Last week, the committee presented its report to the party’s leadership.

It is my understanding that the report would not be made public.

It will be very instructive, though, to see how the party processes its 2024 defeat because that will go a long way to shape the next steps.  

What happened in 2024?

In the lead-up to the 2024 election, whether in my op-ed pieces or during media interviews, I was often very cautious in making definitive pronouncements about the potential outcome of the election.

My cautious assessment was driven by several factors – a) solid poll numbers (Global Info Analytics) for John Mahama but also some vulnerabilities in one of the polls which I felt could be exploited by the NPP; b) a certain public display of confidence by the NPP which made me wonder if the reality on the ground as they campaigned was different from my observations; c) support for key government policies (Free SHS; 1 district, 1 factory; 1 village, 1 dam; planting for food and jobs) as per results of Afrobarometer Round 10, 2024 even when Ghanaian assessments of the government’s performance were poor in the same survey; and d) the unpredictable nature of voters.

In retrospect, the NPP was on its way to defeat as far back as 2022.

Why do I say that? If you plot the trajectory of Ghanaian attitudes towards the party’s stewardship of the country, the narrative looks like this:

Phase I - initial goodwill, strong support and positive assessment of conditions in the country and government performance (Afrobarometer Round 7, 2017).

Phase II – Slight erosion in goodwill and drop, but not very significant, in positive assessment of conditions in the country and government performance (Afrobarometer Round 8, 2019).

Phase III – Rebound and improvement with all-round positive assessment of conditions in the country and government performance (CDD-Ghana, pre-election survey, October 2020).

Phase IV- Major erosion of goodwill and all-round negative assessment of conditions in the country and government performance.

This phase was also characterised by a shift in the political landscape in both political party preference and voting intentions in favour of their main political rivals, the NDC (Afrobarometer Round 9, 2022 and Round 10, 2024).

The simple answer to the question what happened is this – voters turned away from the NPP.

The low voter turnout suggests that two things possibly happened. First, those who decided to vote for the NDC were highly motivated and showed up to vote for their candidate.

Second, those who turned away from the NPP, but could not cross political carpets decided to stay home.

What next?

Whatever the recommendations of the election review committee, I sincerely hope that it is embraced and implemented.

For me, there are three things I would like to see as part of the “what next” for my mother’s party’s people.

First, collective ownership of the election defeat.

I fully understand and have read some of the intraparty grievances aired publicly since Dr Bawumia’s concession.

In the search for reasons why a party lost an election, it will be unrealistic to expect no singling out of individuals or specific actions and behaviours.

When all is said and done though, in forging ahead and building the necessary unity needed to rebound, the party’s leadership must find a way to pull all its sympathisers together and collectively own the defeat.

Without that, I dread the next election for party executives and flag bearer race for 2028.

Second, is the expansion of the electoral college.

I still argue that political parties must move away from the delegate system to an open primary where all registered members of the party can participate in party elections.

As my mother said, “you do not let a few decide on candidates, and expect the many to fall in line for the national election.”

It may be logistically challenging, but it is an idea I strongly believe is worth trying.

Third, it will be worth the party’s time and effort to rebuild one of the relationships I believe was lost post the 2016 election and, in my opinion, only worsened by the 2024 election.

I am referring to the relationship with civil society.

The are many reasons for the deterioration, but an open dialogue will go a long way to help.

It will be difficult no doubt, and I am sure there are voices with no appetite for this but in the long run, I hope it happens.

The writer is Project Director, Democracy Project

Pull Quote: Whatever the recommendations of the election review committee, I sincerely hope that it is embraced and implemented.