Kweku Baako Jnr has proffered an analysis of the loss of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the just-ended polls citing complacency as a key reason the ruling party failed to clinch a second term.
The Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper also pointed out to over-confidence in the so-called Green Book by the John Mahama-led government as another contributing factor for the incumbent government’s defeat at the presidential and parliamentary elections.
Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) obtained more than 53% of votes beating President Mahama who obtained a little over 44% of votes. NPP has also won the majority of seats in the legislature, beating NDC parliamentary hopefuls in constituencies the incumbent was tipped to retain. The defeat comes despite the ruling party’s assurance that it has spearheaded significant infrastructural and economic development to earn the mandate for another term.
However, speaking on Joy News/Joy FM news analysis programme Newsfile on Saturday, Kweku Baako said although the NPP rose up to the challenge of winning this year’s election after failing to do so in 2008 and 2012, the incumbent party also failed to strategise properly.
“If you look at the election results, particularly from the outcome of the parliamentary results, you realise that the [NDC] Members Parliament, the Parliamentary Candidates, the campaign team, the District Chief Executives, as well as the metropolitan and municipal groups, all went to bed,” he said.
He adds, “[the NDC] were complacent, they were over-confident; they were thinking that the projects that have been launched in the mighty Green Book were the magic wand that could win them the elections.”
The Green Book was published in the run-up to the general elections and purportedly captures the major achievements of the government. It was criticised as a poor propaganda tool that contained non-existent completed projects by members of the NPP and some social commentators.
The renowned Editor also cited uncouth utterances of some NDC communicators against the NPP presidential candidate of the NPP that worked against the ruling party in the elections.
“…The kind of message they [NDC] crafted and were marketing, the over-personalisation that intruded into their campaign narrative, the attack on Akufo-Addo; the consistent attack and recycling of discredited, worn out propaganda stuff – some as old as 15 to 20 years – consistently recycling them and targeting one person [Akufo-Addo]” also caused NDC’s defeat, said Kweku Baako Jnr.
A legal practitioner, Ace Ankomah, who was also on the show said NDC failed to notice that the personal attack on Nana Akufo-Addo would not work after an attempt to question his lifestyle culminated into the “Kalyppo Challenge”.
An NDC Communicator ridiculed a picture of Nana Akufo-Addo sipping on the fruit drink, saying the three times presidential candidate is patronising a drink that could put his health at risk.
But soon the “Kalyppo Challenge” started on social with prominent and ordinary people taking a photo of themselves sipping on the drink and posting it on Facebook and Twitter.
Mr Ankomah said the incident further increased the popularity of Akufo-Addo and the NPP campaign.
Deputy Attorney-General, Abraham Amaliba, says his party is yet to look into the party’s defeat on December 7, but disagreed with the reasons proffered by Mr Baako and Ace Ankomah.
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