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Once again, the battle between Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo and Alan Kojo Kyerematen has ended, with Alan beaten. This time Alan was not just beaten, but humiliated to the unimaginable level. Before the contest, many were those who called on Alan and those who wanted to contest Nana Akufo Addo to withdraw to enable the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to have enough time and resources to campaign for the 2016 general election, but Alan was the one making the loudest noise of telling Ghanaians that he was going to win the election. In the first round of the primaries held on August 31, which was used to trim down the candidates contesting the flag-bearer position to five, Nana Akufo Addo had 598 votes, while the six others, including Alan Kyerematen, only got a total of 126, with Alan having 59 votes with no vote from the Western, Upper East, and Upper West regions. This humbling result still did not change the pride of Alan, whose campaign team came up with very flimsy excuses. His spokesperson and former General Secretary of the NPP, Nana Ohene Ntow, said the vote was not indicative of what would happen in the main primary. Ohene Ntow said the 740 delegates were not representative of the 144,000 expected to vote in the main primary, and insisted that Mr Kyerematen could turn the scales on October 18. The resounding victory of Akufo Addo in the first round made two contestants, Messrs Joe Ghartey and Osei Ameyaw, concede, and hence withdrew from going into the second round. Despite this bluff by Mr Kyerematen and his campaign team, the humiliation that was to follow was more deafening. Come October 18, and while Nana Akufo Addo had 117,365 votes, Mr Kyerematen had a mere 5,925, with Mr Francis Addai Nimo obtaining 1,035 votes. Political competition Considering the fact that in a democracy competition must be encouraged, it is also a fact that no matter how stiff any political competition becomes, people have to weigh their chances before they enter the ring. In such situations, some prospective contenders decide to step down in the bigger interest of their political parties. It is from this point of view that many, considering the performance of Nana Akufo Addo in the first round as against the other six candidates, called on them (other six) to save the party the huge amount y to organise the second round. With Mr Kyerematen behaving the way he did, it was obvious he had never considered the bigger interest of NPP. For instance, he had up to the time of writing this piece not condemned what his spokesperson, Ohene Ntow, said about the results of the October 18 election. While Mr Kyerematen was in the house of Akufo Addo congratulating him and making promises, his chief spokesperson, Ohene Ntow, was questioning the results, insisting: �It is not normal for anyone to win more than 90 per cent in any election. I am very astonished.� He, therefore, called on the NPP to analyse the elections in order to correct all the mistakes that occurred; which mistakes, he never mentioned. The position of my colleague and friend Nana Ohene Ntow is very worrying, more so because he is a former General Secretary of the NPP, but the most disturbing and worrying aspect of the whole situation is the silence of Mr Kyerematen on what the leader of his campaign team is saying about the same election for which he, as a candidate, seems to have accepted the results and congratulated the winner. With the two results from the NPP primaries, many feel Mr Kyerematen�s ambition of leading the NPP is completely destroyed. And this feeling becomes even stronger when his campaign utterances have been seen to be very devastating to not only Nana Addo, but also the NPP and its 2016 election fortunes. . . .And my support for Graphic One newspaper has reported that the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) has asked its newspapers to not report on Asamoah Gyan, the Black Stars captain, as a result of the assault on Daniel Kenu, the company�s Ashanti Regional Editor, by Baffour Gyan (Asamoah�s senior brother) and his accomplices. I totally support the GCGL newspapers boycotting the Gyan brothers. The fact is Asamoah Gyan and his brother have not made any serious and formal apology to Daniel Kenu and GCGL, and for that matter Ghanaian journalists. The press conference which was organised by the Gyan brothers was rather used to further display their arrogance and their disdain for journalists, and until a proper and fitting apology is made by Asamoah Gyan and his brother, it would be proper for the entire media fraternity to boycott them. The position taken by the GCGL management to blacklist Asamoah Gyan and his brother is a positive step worth emulating by executives of all media houses who value the lives of their staffs and also frown on attacks on journalists. I say Bravo to GCGL for setting the pace. *The author is a Political Scientist and Media and Communication Expert. [email protected]