Decentralize NPP’s campaign to win elections – NPP activist

As internal power struggle continues to heat up in the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), a member of the party’s communication team, Richard Asante Yeboah, has counseled the leadership of the party to do everything humanly possible, albeit legally, to avoid defeat in the 2016 general elections.

Many NPP faithful in UK are rooting for Nana Akufo-Addo to be retained as the NPP’s flagbearer for 2016; thus, they have come up with “no Nana, no vote” mantra to send a strong signal to the decision makers in the party to make sure the 2012 presidential candidate of the party (NPP) is retained for the next elections.


Against this backdrop, a former Minister of Trade and MP for Offinso North, Hon. Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku has advocated for a possible change of Flagbearer leadership if the NPP relishes hope of coming back to power in 2016. He asserted that, after two successive defeats, there is the need for a reelection to diagnose the causes of the defeat rather than to dream to lead the party again.


But Asante Yeboah believes in order to win power, the party’s parliamentary candidates at the various constituencies must be better resourced financially to campaign vigorously to win seats for the party; thus a win for them will mirror on the chances of the presidential candidate.


The NPP activist stressed on Okay Fm that, the centralization of the party’s campaign at the presidential level has been the major cause of electoral defeats suffered by the NPP, as many parliamentary candidates rely on the assistance of the presidential candidate to visit the various constituencies to solicit votes for them; forgetting that his short stay in the constituencies cannot win them the votes they require.

“……they often rely on the presidential candidate to assist in printing of T-Shirts and so you realize that around those constituencies, running of the campaign is a major problem. We often deceive ourselves that the presidential candidate will visit the various constituencies, but we fail to realize that his 30 minutes visit cannot make any significant impact in winning votes as against 3 months vigorous campaign which can assure victory for the party,” he stressed.


He pontificated that “our campaign is not decentralized and so people begin to feel that if you are not part of the campaign team of the presidential candidate then you are not doing anything to help the party to win power.”


“...we should rather follow the party and not any individuals because I have also realized that after primaries, we hardly forgive ourselves due to the kind of words we used against each other during the primaries to win power……people tend to stay back to watch how the winners will go about soliciting for votes while others also embark on negative campaigning against the party; we must avoid the mantra ‘no Candidate A, no Vote’ because people buy into that and it eventually result in a skirt and blouse voting pattern,” he advised.