Asante Otchere: "Bawumia's performance at the NPP primaries demonstrated that the grassroots didn't like him."

According to a political observer, the New Patriotic Party's internal problems, such as the multiple elections it held before the general elections on December 7, contributed to some of the party's loss in the recently concluded elections.

A political science lecturer at the University of Cape Coast named Dr. Jonathan Asante Otchere claims that the NPP's failure was partially caused by eight internal elections that were held before the general elections.

"Every level of elections bring acrimony," he explains, enumerating the various issues that arose from the setup of polling stations to branch elections, constituencies, and regional exercises, as well as the presidential and parliamentary primaries, which were held in batches.

He asked, "So, what do you think should happen at the end of the day?" during his appearance on Ghana Tonight on TV3 on Monday, December 23, 2024.

He added that Dr. Bawumia's performance in the two presidential primaries that were held prior to the general elections demonstrated that the general public did not find him to be a popular candidate.

He clarified that he didn't have enough support from the party's base because he didn't receive 70% of the party's base in either the super delegates or delegates conferences.

According to the Afrobarometer survey, Ghanaians did not trust Bawumia because they believed he lacked the qualities of the leader they required, Dr. Asante Otchere remarked.

"Dr. Bawumia himself would have to turn around, examine the law, and admit to himself that the Afrobarometer survey revealed that people did not trust me or my character. Ghanaians stated that they require a trustworthy and morally upright individual. Did he possess that? Considering his prior performance, I don't believe so.

"You have a presidential candidate who was elected as the party's leader despite receiving less than 70% of the vote in both the primary and the actual presidential election. He so lost the election right away. He said that he was not from the grass root.

The remarks made by Dr. Asante Otchere come after the NPP declared that it would form a committee to look into the reasons behind the party's loss in the most recent elections, which gave the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) a two-thirds majority in parliament and a significant lead in the presidential contest.

This was disclosed by Stephen Ayesu Ntim, the party's national chairman, during a press conference on Monday, December 23, 2024.

He stated that in order to identify the reasons for the loss, the proposed Election Review Committee will consult with the public and party stakeholders. Mr. Ntim pointed out that this will guide the party's reforms to make it stronger going forward.

"The party will establish an impartial and efficient Election Review Committee in January 2025 to conduct a postmortem on the election's results. The committee will discuss the causes and conditions that led to our defeat with the public and all party stakeholders," he said.

The party chairman went on to say that one important topic the committee would look into is whether a constitutional amendment should be made to reorganise the party's internal decision-making process, which includes choosing party executives and presidential and parliamentary candidates.