I once had a discussion with a leading member of the NPP and he was emphatic in his conviction that the only way NPP can be defeated at the polls is if it works hard to defeat itself. The view was that defeat will be ensured if the NPP fails to protect its turf. Without a doubt its greenest turf is the Ashanti region. Here, under JAK the NPP won at some point, 80% of the vote. It is such a huge beast that to capture state power, NPP must do all in its power to keep its share of the vote at around 75% in this region.
In the 2008 election news reaching some of we NPP activists on the ground was that should Nana Addo come to power he was going to elevate His Majesty Nana Okyehene to the level of the Asantehene. Now I have immense respect for the overlord of Abuakwa in Okyeman. He is an example of an activist chief, keen to ensure the sanctity of the environment, and an upholder of traditional values which are the bedrock of our nation as a whole. However, history is on the side of the occupant of the Golden Stool and this makes it virtually impossible for any traditional ruler in Ghana to rival in terms of profile, any occupant of the Golden Stool. Clashes with the British, domination of what is virtually modern Ghana, the reputation of Yaa Asantewaa etc all come together to make Asante more high profile than others. This is not ethnocentric, this is a fact. It is just like the British monarchy being more high profile than the Swedish monarchy for the simple fact that Britain dominated the world from about 1700 to 1900 while Sweden had no such dominance to talk of.
The above is important for NPP’s electoral fortunes because as I have said previously, voters do not elect presidents solely on economic reasons. Social reasons also explain elections. One reason why John F Kennedy beat Richard Nixon in the 1960 Presidential election was that he was so handsome and so charismatic that American housewives just flocked to his banner. The same applied to the contest between Bill Clinton and George Bush senior; Clinton remains the darling of American housewives – friendly, charismatic, easy to approach and with a permanent smile on his face while Bush senior looked stern, serious and unapproachable. In Ghana one of the grounds for the defeat of Nana Addo in 2008 was the attack on his personality by the NDC. Whether these were factual or not was beside the point – voters could not bring themselves to elect him because he was portrayed as rude, arrogant etc and Mills, notwithstanding his incompetence and lack of leadership qualities, was portrayed as humble, peaceful etc.
Thus any attack on the symbol of Asante being the Asantehene is bound to ensure the NPP’s defeat. The tendency in the NPP of late to allege that the Asantehene is NDC (just because he was seen dancing with his NDC guests inside the Manhyia palace); that he had somehow contrived to facilitate an outcome favourable to President Mahama at the Supreme Court (ridiculous and we all know this!); that he should not have come to the re-commissioning of the Kumasi Airport by Mahama etc, will all have a serious impact on NPP votes especially in the rural areas. What we were made to understand was that in the 2008 election, the rural areas saw a lot of people refuse to vote NPP as they had been doing since 1992. They did not vote NDC but they stayed home on that day and this eroded the NPP vote on that day.
Someone needs to tell the NPP that they need to make their peace with Nana Osei Tutu. The NDC spin in the rural areas in 2008 was that an NPP victory was going to result in the humiliation of the Asantehene. In recent times Honourable Yamin has made the first move to make the NDC look like the defender of the Golden Stool. As someone once said the NDC does not know how to govern - but it knows how to win elections! With these fears and statement being held and made, NPP support in the rural areas of Asante is in jeopardy. It is not for the fun of it that NDC is talking of 1 million votes in the region come 2016. They know what they are doing and have the propaganda tools to convince people to overlook the economic disaster we are facing and vote largely on social grounds.
It is incumbent on the NPP lag bearer to make this move and to do so quickly. If he does not do so then he will take us to our third defeat and will therefore go down as the worst flag bearer in the history of the Danquah-Busia tradition.
