If I knew who ?sonomma winning election strategists were, I would suggest something to them. After minister 100 and achievement 100, they would need to decide whether they are for the middle class or the grassroots or both. They are the ones with the motherland advancing ideas and deeds.
But too often, they allow congresspeople dilution which doesn’t help their cause.
I have a feeling they, ?sonomma, introduced the party ‘radio/television communicator’ concept from the then Ministry of Information.
The party would find money from somewhere to engage people to speak on its behalf. See the perversion congresspeople have reduced it to: spewing trash as radio content. Throughout the latest congress anti-development eight-year reign, and particularly during the last electioneering, many compatriots had to design some form of ear plugs, they would tune off or not touch a radio or television set.
They couldn’t stand the mainly congress communicator abuse of broadcasting, a potential tool for national development.
Smart ?sonomma would have realised some people’s green book of lies and deceit they wanted seen as achievements was a total disaster. That would suggest simply developing deeds numerically may not be the best way to tout achievements. Point is there is often the temptation to list thoughts, wishes and non-existing intangibles as achievements.
My reading of Election 2016 was that there was a groundswell of middle class interest in what ?sonomma had to offer.
The group had been the greatest beneficiaries of the Kufuor economic magic. So after the dismal congresspeople showing, the class needed something to connect them back to the Kufuor deeds. They found that in Nana Addo’s well articulated vision with programmes to match. Without the opportunity of measuring opinion as my colleague and I had had in the past, I could still gauge that the middle class voted massively for ?sono. The grassroots did the same. What I cannot surmise is whether the middle class had an influence on the grassroots.
As for grassroots influence on the middle class, it seems unnatural since the former potentially will be followers in their relationship with the latter.
So the caution is to beware of what pleases the middle class and what pleases the grassroots.
Congresspeople wish to take the latter approach.
They feed the grassroots with all kinds of opium, hoping they would drug them into accepting whatever they say. They further want the grassroots to believe in the little they do for the motherland and forget the big things they do for their congress selves.
It is the kind of situation ?sonomma should ensure they would not be associated with. They are perceived as know something and can do people. Expectations of standard of behaviour and action are therefore, unfairly, their lot.
Maybe it’s fair expectation; because if all one would expect from leadership, is mediocrity and incompetence, this motherland will forever be stuck in poverty and ignorance.
A politician who seeks to win an election cannot avoid some degree of populism. After all, sloganeering is all populism. How much a contestant’s rhetoric and pronouncements are populist is what matters. So you may attract the middle class with your rational strategies. But it would be dangerous, as sister Akosua Clinton learned, to ineffectually play down the populist card. One must always remember the grassroots vote too. They actually control the votes. So you ignore populism at your own peril.
The winning take is populism with rationality. It’s a strange mixture.
But strangeness when properly manipulated becomes novelty which is an election campaign winner.
You work to convince people that that new thing is it; that it is the answer to their unemployment, high cost of living and abject poverty problems. Your solutions ought to be crafted to include a populist element. I believe evidence would abound in the ?sonomma 2016 campaign.
As usual, I don’t have the evidence to state the extent to which the 110 ministers and/or the 103 achievements have together or separately needled the middle class.
Also, no proof of the extent the 193, especially, has resonated with the grassroots. Any benefits at all would come from what the populace feels: cedi value, petrol prices, transportation costs, and so on.
I would say middle class or grassroots, people would say Nana Addo is moving in the right direction. Thus, there is
no need for ?sonomma to mimic congress populism.
It’s good to have enough dose of populism to win. The middle class clout, though, counts because of its capacity to co-opt grassroots support. Successfully politicking is working in the interest of citizens with the right measure of populism in the political rhetoric. History is replete with the evil consequences of populist election wins which happen when people mistakenly interchange enthusiasm with populism.
By Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremeh