Spokesperson for Bryan Acheampong’s campaign team, Pius Enam Hadzide, says the performance of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s 2024 presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, negatively affected the party’s overall outcome in the elections.
According to him, in Ghana’s history during elections, the NPP presidential candidates have always secured higher votes than the party’s parliamentary candidates, however that was different in 2024.
Speaking on Asempa FM on October 15, Mr. Hadzide explained that the pattern in past elections has consistently shown the presidential candidate leading the party’s overall performance.
“The presidential candidate garners more votes than all the parliamentary candidates,” he said.
He went on to cite election results of NPP Presidential versus Parliamentary candidates from 1996 to date to support his argument.
He said in 1996, all NPP parliamentary candidates together had 33.80%, and the presidential candidate at the time, John Agyekum Kufuor, got 39.70%.
In 2000, Kufuor got 56.90%, while all the parliamentary candidates of the party put together had 44.9%.
In 2004, Kufuor again got 52%, and the parliamentary candidates got 49.5%.
In 2008, presidential candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo garnered 49.77%, and the NPP parliamentary candidates totaled 46.9%.
In 2012, when Akufo-Addo again had 47.74%, the NPP parliamentary candidates got 47.50%.
In 2016, Akufo-Addo got 53.72%, and NPP MPs got 51.69% total, and then in 2020 Akufo-Addo got 51.30%, and all the MPs got 50.40%.
Mr. Hadzide said the data clearly shows a consistent trend.
“The trend is that it is the presidential candidate that is leading, and all the parliamentary candidates follow,” he explained.
He noted that the 2024 elections, however, marked a change from this pattern.
“In 2024, all the 276 parliamentary candidates put together had 44.50%. The presidential candidate got 41.70%. That’s a deviation from the trend,” he said.
Mr. Hadzide acknowledged that several issues affected the party’s performance in the 2024 general election, including dissatisfaction with the government and internal challenges within the NPP.
However, he added “there was also a candidate problem,” referring to the former Vice President, who led the NPP into the 2024 elections.
He explained that if voters’ anger had been directed solely at the party or government, the parliamentary candidates would have also suffered equally poor results.
