The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has disclosed that the just ended parliamentary primaries of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has shown that almost five percent of supporters of the party has no confidence in President John Dramani Mahama.
This was contained in a press release dated November 26, 2015, and signed by Nana Akomea, Director of Communications of the NPP.
“In the absence of no contestant, the ‘no’ votes also imply that, nearly 5% of NDC supporters prefer nobody to President Mahama”, Nana Akomea said in the press statement released in Accra yesterday.
The NPP Communications Director explained that a trend analysis undertaken by his party points to the fact that President Mahama’s performance may actually be on the decline.
He noted that as the incumbent, President Mahama enjoyed all the huge advantages of an executive president, which as a result discouraged others from contesting against him.
Nevertheless, Nana Akomea continued, President Mahama embarked on a massive nationwide campaign in the run up to the flagbearership primary, to enable him obtain the maximum number of votes as possible.
“His 95.1% endorsement compares not too favourable with Nana Akufo did not enjoy any advantages of an incumbent president and faced contests from three other party stalwarts.
“In 2011, President John Evans Atta Mills, against fierce competition from Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawling’s, secured 96.7% of valid votes cast.
President Mahama in 2012, unopposed, secured 99.5% of valid votes cast.
“In 2015, still unopposed, President Mahama secures 95.1% of valid votes cast, a worse result than President Mills and a loss of more than 4% of his (President Mahama’s) own endorsement in 2012”, he noted.
The NPP, however, congratulated the NDC on the successful holding of its parliamentary and presidential primaries throughout the country on Saturday and Sunday.
The NPP head of Communications noted that the NDC had taken a cue from his party, after it expanded its electoral college in 2010, which saw the dramatic increase in numbers of delegates from about 5,000 to over 140,000. He posited that “Five years later, the NDC has taken the expansion in numbers of voters to a new level, with the opening of eligibility to all card-bearing NDC members.
“This has seen their numbers ballooning from about 4,000 delegates to over 1 million voters,” adding that “This is a significant development that further enhances grassroots participation in internal party democracy.”
He touched on some negative occurrences that marred the otherwise successful primaries, which according to him, should serve as lessons for all political parties in the country, in the organization of parliamentary primaries.
These negative events, he continued, include the beating up of some aspirants, reported kidnappings of rival supporters, free for all fights, destruction of ballot boxes, snatching of ballot boxes, ransacking and locking up of offices of the Electoral Commission (EC). Other incidents were the deployment of “land guards” and the military to intimidate votes.
“Disputes over the parliamentary registers were also rampant with reports of deletion of names, fraudulent manipulation of constituency registers to favour particular candidates and outright destruction of registers.
Nana Akomea also mentioned name calling and insults, which were rampant, especially in the run up to the elections, with some aspirants accusing others of employing voodoo and other underhand efforts to win their respective slots.
There have also been reports of tribalism and ethnicity being employed in campaigns, as well as reports of vote buying, he noted.
These negative incidents, according to him, “should serve as warnings to political parties in our organization of primaries”.
He added that these negative incidents also “signify the need for political parties to come together to brainstorm on new measures and rules of engagement that can limit these negative occurrences during primaries or elections in general”.
Nana Akomea expressed NPP’s surprise at the defeat of some persons he described as “loud contestants”, including Derek Adjei, Dr. Kpessa White, Abraham Amaliba and Peter Otokunor.
This, the NPP Communications Director explained; “shows that loud soundings on radio do not necessarily indicate popularity”.
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