'It is the economy' - Matters arising from the NPP’s defeat in the Assin north by-election

Since the NPP’s ignominious defeat in the Assin North by-election, members of the UP tradition who are genuinely concerned about the electoral fortunes of the party have done a post-mortem to find out the reason(s) for the NDC’s landslide victory in that by-election.

So far I have not heard of any committee that the party has formally set up to investigate this shameful defeat of a party in government as has been the tradition of the NPP historically.

This failure to probe the reasons for the party’s failure in Assin North formally is perhaps due to attempts to explain the party’s defeat away by some apologists of the government that it was “an NDC seat anyway”.

Nana Akomea, the current MD of the State Transport Corporation, led the pack in attacking the NDC for celebrating after retaining a seat that was their own; in fact, Nana Akomea had purposefully forgotten the fact that the NPP once held that seat!

But truth be told, with the huge momentum the NPP carried from the Kumawu by-election a few weeks prior, they had hoped to wrestle the seat back from the NDC. Moreover, the NPP had hoped that victory in Assin North would provide them with a huge psychological edge going into the 2024 general elections.

But, hope is not strategy, unfortunately. It is indeed quite ironic that a party that has historically prided itself on “having the men” is now the party that is the least intellectual in terms of grounding its strategy in facts qua facts.

In fact, given the accuracy of the NDC’s projections of the Assin North electoral results vis a vis those of the Electoral Commission, for all intents and purposes, the NDC is now the party with “the men (and women)” who can think and crunch the numbers to guide the party as a modern mass organisation.

From the limited analysis so far, the reasons for the NPP’s loss in Assin North have ranged from party executives bonking women in hotel rooms instead of campaigning in the field to showcasing Bawumia as a presidential candidate as opposed to campaigning for Charles Opoku, the parliamentary candidate.

But, if the NPP were indeed “a party with the men (and women)” who have the technical knowhow, it would be easy to reach the conclusion that the above-cited reasons for the party’s loss are at best, ephemeral, and are hardly backed by any observable facts.

Specifically, if the NPP were a party with men of ideas and aptitude for number crunching for the purpose of informed strategy and policy, it would not have gone through the expense of showcasing a President whose approval rating is 29% at a campaign rally in Assin North.

What the 29% approval rating of the President means is that more than 7 out of 10 eligible voters of Ghana think that our President has failed in his efforts to lead the country. Consider this.

In July 2015, a little over one year before the election that he lost, John Mahama’s approval rating was 47%, yet Ghanaians would go ahead and vote him out of office.

So, why would the organisers of the by-election in Assin North make that cardinal mistake of letting a President who has become so unpopular to campaign? And the senility of the President could not be hidden when on the campaign platform he campaigned against his own candidate!

The organisers of the campaign should have simply left the old man to rest in his bunker for, after all, Ghanaians have come to terms with the fact that the country has been on autopilot for quite some time now.

Moreover, if the NPP were a party with the men with the intellectual and technical wherewithal, the organisers of the by-election would not have bothered to go to Assin North with loads of cash to bribe the voters to vote for their candidate.

The organisers should have known that since 2017 the country has been grossly mismanaged so no amount of cash could sway the voters on the very day they were voting to choose their representative in Parliament; how stupid do you think Ghanaians are?

After all, the data is there to guide them on this misplaced effort to bribe the voters on the day of the poll. According to the latest Afrobarometer survey data, almost 9 out of 10 of eligible Ghanaian voters think that the country is going in the wrong direction; the same proportion of voters think that the economic conditions in the country are bad.

Furthermore, almost 3 out of 4 eligible voters (72%) say their present living conditions are bad. These are the realities on the ground in the country and they are the realities that inform the opinions and behaviours of voters who just voted in Assin North and will vote again in 2024.

Yet, characteristically, the apologists of the government, who of course, must sing for their lunch, are quick to suggest that by-elections are different from general elections and that the party’s loss in Assin North does not predict anything as far as the 2024 general and presidential elections are concerned.

Are these sycophants saying that between now and November 2024 when the voters go to the polls to choose new leaders their living conditions and the general direction of the country would be different to expect any change in their thinking and behaviours as voters?

Once again, here is the data. When voters were asked about what they expected the country’s economic condition to be in one year’s time (that is, by January, 2024), half of them (50%) said they expected it to be worst.

The logic becomes very simple. Like voters everywhere in the world, Ghanaian voters are rational economic actors and therefore they vote based on their economic interests and conditions as those in Assin North proved to the whole world.

If the above premise is true, then it follows that with the expectation that the economic conditions in the country will get worst in 2024, they will vote against the party that messed up their economic conditions and that party is the NPP, unfortunately.

In fact, ceteris paribus (All things being equal), the margin of loss will even be wider for the NPP in 2024’s general and presidential elections than what we have just witnessed in Assin North!

Fellow Kukrudites, the truth hurts but it will set us free one day so let’s face it. The NPP brand has been severely damaged under the current managers of the brand and the sooner we admit it and start making amends, the better it will be for the party going forward.

The truth of the matter is that the current leadership of the party is leading the party and the country to mass destruction yet we are all marching on like sheep to the slaughter.

Let’s face it, the NPP is a goner as far as 2024 is concerned, and that is the reason why for me personally, I am not fazed by the comedy with regard to the race for the leadership of the party now because whoever leads the NPP now cannot prevent us from our inexorable march to opposition.

Some party elders and keepers of the UP tradition I have utmost respect for are quiet because they are afraid that the attack dogs of the current crop of leaders will be unleashed on them.

But, hey, so what? Let us say something for the record because we are all dead in the long run anyway, however, the record will be there for posterity to judge us.