Bawumia must win, but let us listen to Ashanti Region

The General Secretary of our dear party, together with other dignified party people drew and publicised a hectic yet wonderful electoral schedules for the remainder of our electoral activities from 2023 through to 2024. Come November 4 2023, Bawumia must win or Alan must continue the journey he started some two decades ago; whoever gets to lead the party, our fate as a party going into election 2024, our victory or our fall, is wholly dependent on him and that singular decision which made him our leader.

Patriots who support Dr. Bawumia's candidature are convinced beyond boundaries that no cause is nobler, they see themselves as those who are earnestly guarding this enviable tradition. In a similar vein, we who support the presidential bid of Alan Kweremanteng, see ourselves as true Patriots, custodians of the true ideals of the party and the defenders of the remnants of our political ideas; it is a contest of who is what in the party.

Proponents of Dr. Bawumia's presidential bid believe that he is the last piece of the Busia-Danquah-Dombo traditional jigsaw; with both Ashanti and Eastern leading the party sometime in the party's life, a Northerner too must be served the Dombo's slot. We in the other side of the divide, want to work with long service, commitment and loyalty. We can all agree that, we both have points to prove, but let us ask our electoral pursuits and fortunes in the past few years... Let us appraise ourselves to ascertain whether we can survive these regional and bigotic way of politicking or we will only have a party divided by selfishness and not ready for power.

Using 2020 as a benchmark, let us try to use our electoral fortunes in the past to foretell our future. Out of 15 regional electoral zones our research focused on, our dear NPP won 6 regions, the remaining 9 all fell to the NDC. They had the most number of regions, but we had the most number of votes. How did we manage this magic? The reason resides in this same submission. We beat the NDC by 77,975 votes in Central Region; they beat us by 73,310 votes in Greater Accra, analytically, we won the swing battle by just over 4,665 votes that is, the difference of our exploits in Central and their exploits in Greater Accra.

Now, the rest of the votes were tales of who conquers the most from their strongholds. We all have our strongholds, but the NDC match us boot to boot in some of our purported banks of votes; in fact, the NDC won in Western North, matched us reasonably in both Eastern and Western Regions. We edged them by just a little over 300,000 votes in Eastern Region and comparatively, just under a 100,000 votes in Western.

Approximately, these 400,000 or so votes difference we garnered from these two regions were able to slow the surge of the 500,000 votes difference they edged over us in Volta Region. But just look at how Ashanti region turn the tie as we were destined to lose back in our favor. All other numbers from other regions took the backstage when NPP Ashanti region walked in with 1,795,824 against the NDCs 653,149. In fact, putting our 1 million votes aside, we still managed 142,675 vote difference; this is between our 795,824 and the NDCs 653,149.

That is to say, with 1,142,675 vote difference from Ashanti Region alone, our party was able to successfully diffuse the danger NDC posed to our electoral exploits in 2020. From the ongoing discourse, we, in all sincerity, know the king makers of this political tradition; we know which region can make and unmake our electoral fortunes in the NPP. Take the Ashanti Region out and you will only have an "N" with no two "Ps". From the numbers we are getting, one can argue that the Ashanti Region is NPP and the NPP is Ashanti Region, either cannot survive a separation from the other. So what are we talking about as Patriots?

This is why some of us have always maintained that, even if the tribal and regional wildcat is to be played, it must not come from we in Northern Region; why? Because we do not have the numerical strength to carry out that agenda.

Alan is coming from Ashanti Region and Bawumia is coming from Northern Region, those who are at peace with numbers know who "let's vote for him because he is coming from our region" will favor. Believe me, Ashanti Region is our king makers now, they will remain as such at least for the next few decades.

Whoever Ashanti chooses, will lead this party to greatness; so as we are all trying to earn their favor, let us not anger them by preaching our regional bigotry, your party is nothing without Ashanti Region and the people of Ashanti also have a son in the contest, he is Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanten, please watch your steps...