Aspiring New Patriotic Party flagbearer Dr Bryan Acheampong says the NPP cannot afford to repackage Dr Mahamudu Bawumia after what he describes as a clear electoral verdict from the 2024 elections.
The former Abetifi MP insists that performance, not branding or political sentiment, must guide the party’s next choice.
Speaking on PM Express on Tuesday, Dr Acheampong argued that Dr Bawumia has reached his electoral ceiling. “Everything that you have ends at 41%,” he said.
He described Dr Bawumia as “the most marketed” candidate the party has had since 2008, stating that Dr Bawumia served as Vice President for eight years and as a running mate for eight years.
“Sixteen years that we marketed him, he had 41%,” he said.
The former Agric Minister contrasted that with former President Nana Akufo-Addo’s rise.
“We marketed Akufo-Addo for eight months; he had 49.7%,” he said, insisting that the comparison exposes a deeper problem. “So everything that you are saying, you are making his situation worse,” he told host Evans Mensah.
Dr Acheampong said the 2024 election results were devastating for the party, stressing that the NPP failed to win a single constituency in seven regions during the presidential election.
“After all the attributes that you just highlighted, in seven regions, we could not win a single constituency,” he said. He listed Volta, Oti, Upper East, Upper West, Savannah and Bono East. He said, “In the presidential, we could not win one constituency in these regions.”
According to him, the party’s expectations going into the race were not met.
“When we were supporting him in 2023, one of the beliefs was that if we present him, he would hold the votes from the northern part of Ghana for us,” he said. He said the data showed otherwise.
“Five of the regions that we did not win a single constituency, seven, five of them are from the northern half of Ghana,” he said.
Dr Acheampong cited further losses. “We could not win one western region, 17 constituencies, we won one presidential,” he said.
He said the party won only two presidential constituencies in the Central Region out of 23, in Greater Accra, with 34 constituencies, “presidential, we got two.” He said these results are decisive.
“Those attributes and the results of the elections are the ones that the delegates are passing a verdict on,” he added.
Dr Acheampong said the party must accept reality. “If we market you for 16 years, and you come out with 41% and we market Akufo-Addo for eight months, and he gets 49.7% then there’s a difference,” he said.
He explained that “the difference is that the marketing did not yield the sales results,” adding that “people are going to change their product.”
Responding to suggestions that political history favours giving losing candidates multiple chances, Dr Acheampong rejected that reasoning.
“You’re mixing logic with politics and performance,” he said. He said history is often misunderstood. “It is only logic which will suggest that Adu Boahen went once, Busia went once and won; Kufuor went twice and won; Akufo-Addo went three times and won, and logically, it means that Dr Bawumia will go four times,” he said.
He said the NPP’s tradition is grounded in performance, not sentiment. “We’re talking about political performance,” adding in 1996, “Kufuor did better than Adu Boahen so we returned him.”
He said Kufuor won in 2000 and improved on his own performance in 2004. He said constitutional limits prevented the party from retaining him in 2008.
He said the same principle applied to Akufo-Addo. “Akufo-Addo did better than Kufuor’s 2004,” he stated, adding the party returned him in 2012 because his numbers improved from 2008.
He said he returned in 2016 and won, stressing, “Akufo-Addo did much better in 2020 than his own results in 2016.”