What Bawumia's flagbearership victory means

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) completed its presidential primary election on November 4, 2023, with Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia winning with 61.43% of the total valid votes cast, followed by Ken Agyapong with 37.41%. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto came third with 0.76% while Francis Addai Nimoh was last with 0.41%.

Some political analysts see the upshot of the NPP flagbearership race as a 40% vote of no confidence against Dr. Bawumia because he needed not to have had less than 70% to send an emphatic statement of his likeability within the NPP.

Prof. Ransford Gyampo, a political science lecturer at the University of Ghana describes Bawumia's victory as having a taste of defeat.

Ghanaians were told that Bawumia was the economic messiah who was coming to transform the economy and bring about growth, jobs, and prosperity for all.

Unfortunately, when he was eventually allowed to manage the economy of the nation as Chairman of the Economic Management Team, he turned out not to be helpful, supervising the most abysmal economic performance in the history of the Fourth Republic, and for him to convince the electorate that he deserved their votes is going to be an uphill task if not impossible.

This is the fear of Yaw Buabeng Asamoah, a leading member of the NPP and a former MP for the Adentan Constituency who is reported to have said that presenting Dr. Bawumia as their flag-bearer is like selling pig meat in an Islamic community.

There are other serious challenges against the Vice President's quest to win the 2024 presidential election.

In his pyrrhic victory speech after winning the presidential primary election unimpressively, Dr. Bawumia stated that he has his priorities and that he shall be his own man if allowed to be the President of the Republic.

This is seen as an attempt to distance himself from the terrible performance of his government which is even making his matter worse.

Many Ghanaians believe that giving Bawumia the opportunity to rule in Ghana as president is indirectly allowing Akufo-Addo to rule for a third term and that the NPP 2024 flag-bearer will be a poodle of President Akufo-Addo to continue the Akyem Mafia's purported kleptocratic governance not only to cover wrong-doing, but to further expropriate and embezzle the wealth of the nation at the expense of the wider population.

Former 2nd Vice Chairman of the NPP, Sammy Crabbe has also stated that it will be difficult for Dr. Bawumia to beat former President, John Mahama in the 2024 presidential election because of the heightened economic crisis and the fact that most Ghanaians see the Vice President as part of the reason why they are suffering.

These impressions were supported by a poll by Global Info Analytics on October 3, 2023, which gave Mahama a 48% chance of becoming the next president and Bawumia 28%.

Bawumia's rating was tipped to go down if he wins the flagbearership race, and this is what George Jahraa, a popular Ghanaian musician will call Ashikele.