It’s now clear that Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mahmudu Bawumia will be contesting for the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) presidential primary when the party opens official nomination, sometime late next year.
The party leadership might have issued a caveat on open canvassing of support by aspirants, yet that is not deterring supporters of prospective candidates to engage in underground campaigning, which often, spills into the open.
There’ve been campaign posters of Dr. Bawumia, Alan Kyerematen, Dr. Afriyie Akoto and lately, Joe Ghartey. Among the lots, it’s only the former Railways Minister, Joe Ghartey who as early as January this year, declared an intention of contesting for the NPP presidential ticket.
He officially informed the President of his presidential intention and therefore asked to be exempted from any possible ministerial appointment. There is also the silence but progressive stance of former Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko on the subject.
In all of this, there is other issue of fresh national delegates congress to elect new party executive, out of which, an electoral college would be formed to vote for the party’s presidential candidate.
That notwithstanding, supporters of the presidential hopefuls, are still making overtures to party members and supporters on the credibility and suitability of their preferred candidates.
Party stakeholders and their preferred choices
It may not have manifested in the open; but party stakeholders, including the President of the Republic, are said to be supporting candidates who seemed likely to contest in the NPP presidential nomination.
The President is touted as the strongest exponent of the presidential bid of his Vice President, Alhaji Bawumia. His support of the number two man has assumed a loud silence within NPP circles; and the President’s silence on the claim seems to be stoking the perception that indeed, he is backing his Vice President on the quiet.
Alan Kyerematen, a long time protégé of former President John Agyekum Kufuor, is also operating from that axis. He is drawing his support from many former public officers of the Kufuor Administration.
It won’t be a surprise that his presidential hope is being assented to by the former President. Others like Boakye Agyarko, Joe Ghartey, Kofi Osei Ameyaw and Dr. Afriyie Akoto may not have any God-father like backing and therefore would be striving on their own strength and contributions to the NPP tradition.
This week, supporters of other candidates, except Dr. Bawumia, accused the President of subtly campaigning for his Vice President in the Upper East and West Regions where the President went on a working tour.
He was accompanied on the visits to the two Regions by Dr. Bawumia and other government officials. Of course, from now on to the date of the NPP presidential primary, any combined move by the two is likely to be interpreted by supporters of other presidential aspirants with a certain bias.
At Wawale, the hometown of Dr. Bawumia, the President lauded, Dr. Bawumia as a “First Class Assistant”; and that is being interpreted within the NPP circles as a confirmation of the long held view that he silently, supports the president bidding of his Vice President.
This is why the President may be hurting Bawumia’s candidature
But students of Ghana’s political history would tell you how sitting Presidents who in the past, went on similar trajectories, rather hurt the presidential ambitions of their protégé than helping them achieve their aims.
The best shot that a sitting President has helped his preferred successor had come in the manner of such protégé winning the internal party presidential primary and failing rather woefully, at the national level.
In other instance too, rather than helping the President’s “nominee”, such a stance brings to the presidential-backing candidate, some degree of refusal by party delegates on the premise that “he would not be his own man” and could be remotely controlled by his “Godfather” in event he becomes the Head of State.
Then President, Jerry John Rawlings many political pundits believe, sanctioned the defeat of then Vice President Prof. John Evana Atta Mills in the 2000 elections, the moment he unilaterally endorsed the late Law Professor as the presidential candidate of the NDC in the infamous “Swedru Declaration” in 1998.
That decision caused a major split in the NDC, with Augustus Goosie Tanoh and his group seceding to form the National Reform Party (NRP). Many others were disgusted by the Rawlings’ decision; and thus took a laid back approach in the campaign preceding the 2000 elections.
Atta Mills suffered from a “new-comer” syndrome similar to what Dr. Bawumia is also facing in the NPP today. The agitations about Mills’ candidature swelled to the extent that die-hard NDC members and supporters refused to accept Mills because of his undemocratic selection as NDC candidate.
Similarly, many NPP folks also see Bawumia as an outsider and therefore any seemingly support from the President would likely be rejected by the rank and file of the party, who are so indoctrinated and engrossed in the conservative succession order in the NPP.
The NPP itself has threaded on similar path in the past. The party, according to many ideologues, rejected Alan Kyerematen in the party’s 2007 presidential primary because it became obvious that he was being backed by then President Kufuor.
The Akufo baggage and Bawumia’s own strength
Bawumia may be aided by the executive machinery to win the internal NPP primary. But there is a bigger issue that supporters of the other candidates are asking prospective members of the NPP electoral college to consider critically, before choosing a presidential candidate for the party.
The President’s popularity is waning so fast and that is clearly seen in a number of growing agitations by civilians and other civil society groups. This is perhaps the first time citizens have come in the open with videos to chastise a sitting President for economic hardships in the country.
The President is also being accused of running a family, friends and cronies’ administration and whether that’s imaginary or real, it has seeped into the minds of many Ghanaians that perhaps, it can only be washed away, after the President had left office. Will Bawumia survive with an Akufo Addo backing with all of these baggage?
These, coupled with the fact that the Vice President is himself, the chairman of the Economic Management Team is even making the Bawumia candidacy quite unpopular at birth; and more critically, within the public domain. Many are thus associating the deep decline in the Ghanaian economy to the Bawumia-led team.
Bawumia is also being judged based on his own campaign trail pronouncements in the run-up to the 2016 and 2020 elections when he posited as if he was the economic surgeon general that Ghana urgently needed.
In that state of self-conceit, he trolled and mocked then President Mahama, who on all two occasions was the presidential candidate of the NDC as being “incompetent” with his leadership and management of the country.
But to many on the Ghanaian street, the country’s economy has grown from bad to worse with Bawumia and his boss. They try a facade consolation in the Covid 19 pandemic, to cover up for their obvious failure.
It’s significant to note however, that it’s the unfortunate force majeure that ironically, brought to Ghana, the single highest foreign aid unimaginable in a setting period. So what happened to the huge in-flow of the Covid funds?
The President may be supporting his Vice, but the trajectory, the political history in such instances, if are anything to consider, then perhaps, the President may be hurting rather than helping with the Bawumia candidacy.
Content created by: RKeelson
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