Road to Election 2024: Of flag bearers, running mates - Bawumia & Opoku Prempeh versus Mahama & Opoku-Agyemang
Finally, on Wednesday, June 26, 2024, the flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, selected his running mate for the December 7 polls after he had been endorsed by the National Executive Council (NEC) of the party.
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The then Energy Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, subsequently became the running mate for Dr Bawumia, making it a Dr-Dr Ticket for the ruling NPP party.
His unveiling to the rank and file of the party followed on July 9, 2024, at the Jubilee Park in Kumasi, settling several weeks of conjecture and suggestions about who was going to partner Dr Bawumia for the December 7 contest.
The two go into the December 2024 polls against the biggest opponents, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) duo, John Dramani Mahama and Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyeman.
This means that Ghana is officially going into the upcoming general election with the two major political parties fielding running mates with Opoku as part of their names (Opoku Prempeh and Opoku-Agyemang).
Running mate
The issue of running mates for flag bearers has of late been a very important activity, not only for the political parties, especially the two main ones – the NPP and the NDC, but discussions culminating in their selection have been followed keenly by the entire country.
It is, therefore, not surprising that before the announcement of the NPP flag bearer’s running mate, the voting public kept wondering what was delaying that important pronouncement.
So some names that were suggested or bandied about included that of the Chief of Staff at the Presidency, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare; the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum; the Administrator of the District Assemblies Common Fund, Irene Naa Torshie Addo, and the Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu Ekuful.
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The NPP, however, were not the first to suggest ‘qualified’ names as running mate to their flag bearer. It was a similar experience for the NDC when they set out to select their running mate for the 2024 election.
Apart from Prof. Opoku-Agyemang’s name that came up strongly for the position, names including the former Chief of Staff to President Mahama, Julius Debrah; an economist, Dr Nii Moi Thompson; Member of Parliament for Asunafo, Eric Opoku; and retired Police Commissioner, Nathan Kofi Boakye, were rumoured to be part of Mr Mahama's options.
The choice of running mates has been a rather intriguing exercise for both the NPP and NDC in the Fourth Republic. Aside settling on Kow Nkensen Arkaah of the National Convention Party (NCP) as the running mate of then flag bearer of the NPP, John Agyekum Kufuor in a marriage of convenience (The Great Alliance) in the 1996 election, it has been a north and south affair for the elephant party.
The selection of Kow Arkaah as the running mate meant that he had become the only person in Ghana’s political history to have occupied that slot alongside the flag bearers of two major political parties in two different alliances (one Progressive, the other Great), while belonging to a different party, the NCP.
Having lost the election to the then ruling NDC in 1996 despite the alliance with the NCP, John Kufuor in the 2000 election chose Alhaji Aliu Mahama, a Dagomba from Yendi, Muslim, engineer and politician, as his running mate and went ahead to win that election.
Mr Kufuor maintained Alhaji Mahama, the first Muslim Vice-President in the Fourth Republic, in the next election (2004) and retained the seat for the NPP.
End of Term
After ending his two terms as permitted by the 1992 Constitution, the baton of flag bearer was handed over to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the Foreign Affairs Minister in the Kufuor government.
Nana Akufo-Addo followed the South-North pairing by choosing Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as his running mate in the 2008 election but the NPP lost out to the NDC’s Professor John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills and John Dramani Bawumia pair.
Despite that defeat, subsequent election outcomes have suggested that the selection of running mates from the Northern Region has had payoffs for the NPP, but the situation appears to be different in the case of the NDC in their selection of running mates from the Central Region.
However, Prof. J.E.A. Mills kicked the bucket on Tuesday, July 24, 2012 at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra, three days after his 68th birthday (he was born on July 21, 1944) and five months short of finishing his first term in office, thus becoming the first Ghanaian President to die while in office.
His death, nonetheless, created an opportunity for his Vice, Mr Mahama, to become the President in his stead as stipulated by the Constitution, more or less overnight. Mr Mahama took the oath of office as President on Wednesday, July 25, 2012, in a sombre Parliament.
4th John
After dutifully finishing the first term of his former boss, Mills, Mr Mahama applied to become the flag bearer of the then ruling NDC party and was given the nod for the polls that year – 2012.
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It was therefore, his duty to choose a running mate to maintain the party’s hold on the seat of government. The lot fell on former Governor of the Bank of Ghana, economist, academic and politician, Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur.
The choice of Mr Amissah Arthur also meant that the NDC had maintained the Northern Region and Central Region partnership; only this time there was a swap in positions.
The pair were able to hold the seat for the NDC, with many political watchers stating that they had won sympathy votes from the electorate.
Be that as it may, an attempt to repeat that feat for the NDC for a third consecutive time in 2016 fell through, as the NPP’s duo of Akufo-Addo and Bawumia wrested the Jubilee House from the NDC pair and enjoyed a second term in office in the 2020 elections.
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Weight of Running mates
If hitherto the main consideration for the choice of a running mate for a political party laid in the ability of the selected to amass votes from both the north and south of the country, and ‘headquarters’ of the party in question, the ability of the chosen to debate intensely with the opposing party on issues aimed at garnering votes from floaters, has since been added.
It has been argued that the Vice-President and flag bearer of the NPP, Dr Bawumia, brought a lot to the table and influenced the fortunes of his party in the 2016 elections, by battling the NDC on economic issues and thus becoming the darling of many a floating voter.
The NDC on the other hand, chose the academic, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, as running mate in the 2020 election and maintained her for the upcoming election contrary to perceptions that she was going to be changed.
In advancing why she was chosen again, Mr Mahama said it was based on his conviction that Prof. Opoku-Agyemang had what it took to help assist in turning around the fortunes of the country.
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“If there is any evidence of my commitment to building the Ghana we want, it is in the choice of Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang,” he said.
Fante, Professorial Romance
With the selection of Prof. Opoku-Agyemang who hails from Cape Coast, however, the NDC is continuing its romance with the people of ‘Fanteland’, having already enjoyed such relationship in the past with Kow Nkensen Arkaah (Senya Breku), Prof. Evans Fiifi Arthur Mills (Ekumfi Otuam) and Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur (Cape Coast).
Perhaps it is because the NDC won the Central Region with Arkaah in 1992, with Mills in 1996, and Amissah Arthur in 2012, although they lost the same region with Amissah Arthur in 2016, and Prof. Opoku-Agyemang in 2020.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang, nonetheless, happens to be the second professor to be chosen by a flag bearer of the NDC as a running mate. The late Prof. Atta Mills was the first who went on to become the third John president of the country in the Fourth Republic.