Talensi Referendum: 57% rejects Mahama, NDC

It was President John Dramani Mahama who christened the Talensi bye-election a referendum on the performance of his administration.

Although the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate, Benson Tongo Baba, won the seat, the outcome of the Talensi referendum, as declared by the Electoral Commission, shows Ghanaians have clearly rejected Mahama and the NDC.

Putting together votes collected by five other candidates in the bye-election, the total is 57.25% as against the NDC candidate’s 42.75%.

Thus if the Talensi bye-election is, indeed, a yardstick for or forecast of what is to happen in presidential election of the 2016 General Elections, as Mahama characterised it, then Mahama would fail to obtain the 50% + 1 votes that a presidential candidate needs to accumulate to seal victory.

The breakdown of voted polled is as follows:

1. PPP 214: 0.87%

2. IPP 38: 0.16%

3. NPP 6,845: 27.94%

4. NUP 93: 0.38%

5. PNC 6,836: 27.90%

6. NDC 10,366: 42.31%

With these results the best consolation for the NDC would have been for the presidential election to go into a run-off with the other party whose candidate polled the most votes. And with the history of presidential run-off not the least friendly to incumbents, Mahama would have been gunning for that unenviable tag as the only Ghanaian President in the 4th Republic to have enjoyed only one-term of office.

Few days to the bye-election, President Mahama told a rally of party supporters in the Talensi constituency that the election would be a dress rehearsal for the 2016 General Elections. Other NDC spokespersons insisted Ghanaians will endorse the NDC candidate for the good works the Mahama administration has done in the last two-and-a-half years.

However, as the people of Talensi have shown—they gave the parliamentary seat to B. T. Baba, but rejected the Mahama administration by giving 57.25% of the votes to other candidates.

For many years, Baba was head of the National Sports Council – now National Sports Authority (NSA) – and, few years ago, had his rigmarole with President J.E.A. Mills’ preferred choice for the NSA top job, Prof. Francis Dodoo. Eventually, he had to come to terms with the fact that the powers-that-be, then, would not allow him another term as head of the NSA.

Baba’s decision to contest the Talensi seat on the NDC ticket was another arena for him to re-enact his controversial nature. For many party insiders he was on the periphery of the northern cabal that surrounds the President. He thus had to go the extra mile, exploiting his closeness to insiders and inner-circle proxies, who had to put in words on his behalf before the party would legitimise his candidature for the bye-election.

Even making him popular to the Talensi electorate was hard task. In the run-up to the Talensi bye-election, President Mahama had a herculean task selling his good friend to the Talensi electorate, especially against the background of Ghanaians disillusionment with his administration over the harsh living conditions his policies have inflicted, particularly on the rural people, including Talensi.

With all endorsement and plaudits avenues apparently blighted by Mahama’s own sloppiness, the President team resorted to the disagreeable electioneering tactics of propaganda, intimidation, and psychological warfare in the attempt to cow electorate to give Baba the vote.

He played the psychological trick on the last leg of campaign towards Tuesday’s bye-election by declaring to a money-induced-to-attend crowd of NDC faithful that the Talensi bye-election in the Upper East election would be a referendum on his stewardship for the last two-and-a-half years.

In that light, an overwhelming vote for Baba would have meant that Talensi and, by extension, Ghanaians approve the president’s governing of national affairs, despite the obvious tough times he has inflicted and the challenges ahead for all.

After official results were announced on Tuesday evening, presto, the president seemed a prophet. And Today could hear party faithful merrily proclaiming that Baba’s win constitutes not only a vote of confidence in the president, but is also a forecast of a win for President Mahama in the 2016 General Elections.

Many within circles of national administration and even opposition parties are already drawing similar conclusions, but the observant political analyst will be cautious, for majority of voters in Talensi rejected Mahama and the NDC.

Of course in the open, the NDC would be holding up the win in a psychological-game play by playing up and utilising the peripheral issues of bragging and teasing rights it afford them.

Yet beneath the seeming joy, Today sources say, many deep political thinkers within the NDC are alerting the president not to get caught in the vacuous euphoria on which his cohorts appear drunk.

One party insider whispered to this paper that he is candid with his party folks that the Talensi outcome rather than exciting joy over the win is, indeed, a sad commentary by the Ghanaian on the performance of the Mahama administration.

Changing into a candidness gear, the party insider stated that an administration that is struggling to obtain a respectable mark even in failure on its score-sheet, cannot take solace in the Talensi results. It should rather see it as sigh to work harder to bring the people of Ghana some respite.

Political observers have even pointed to the fact that events of the run-up to the bye-election show the Mahama administration as a sinking ship struggling to stay afloat with the captain struggling at that very task. This, they said, was obvious in the semblance of development projects that shot up out of nowhere almost overnight – road construction; provision of electricity poles to communities; distribution of television sets, food items, loads of cash, etc., during the Talensi bye-election.

For some political observers, it was one grandiose game of deception with the sole aim of winning the psychological game. After the Talensi election, the NDC’s man has won the seat, but can we say the same for the psychological game, one observer quizzed.