The Two Time Defeated Presidential candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, who lost the 2016 elections by over one million votes due to the abysmal performance of his government is now attacking the intelligence of Ghanaian voters by saying he would be shocked if anyone votes for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2024 general elections.
The flagbearer of NDC, who is desperately seeking power for the second time claims upon the hardship that Ghanaians have gone through under the Akufo-led government, he will be shocked if they voted for NPP again.
The former President said this in his recent “Building Ghana We Want Tour” in Bunkpurugu in the North East Region on Monday, April 15, 2024, where he claimed “After what we have gone through in seven and half years, it surprises me if anybody who will still go to the ballot and say he is going to vote for the NPP again’’.
Mr. Mahama, who expressed optimism that the NDC will be voted for massively to win power in December, added “Maybe, those who have made money under this government, yes, they will go and vote again but I know that the majority of Ghanaians have seen a reversal in the quality of their lives in these seven and half years’’.
He lamented that ‘’The majority of Ghaians who are feeling the pinch, the majority of Ghanaians are finding it difficult to put food on the table for their children, the majority of Ghanaians are finding it difficult to travel because they cannot afford transport fares, the drivers of this country who cannot buy fuel, the teachers who do not have learning aids in school, the nurses who have finished school and are sitting home, I know that majority of those people will make a good choice and the viable option and I know that by the grace of God, the viable option is the NDC’’.
The ‘’New John Mahama’’ who claimed to be ‘’A saint’’ lamented that he stands tall among all the other candidates because of the experience he has had in leading the country before.
He empathically stated “On reflection, I’ve been out of office for eight years. It allows me to look back and look at some of the things that we could have done better and not everybody gets that opportunity, that you become president, you go out of office and you get the opportunity to come back again. So, I know that in the four years coming, I will be a much better president than even the first time when I was president’’.
“One, because of the experience that I’ve been president before, and two, because I have had the opportunity to reflect on my period as president and it gives me a focus on things that we need to do to turn around the fortunes of our country as quickly as possible’,’ he lamented.
Causes Of NDC Defeated
The NDC, after their defeat in the 2016 general elections, established a high-powered committee, the Dr Kwesi Botchway Committee, to investigate the causes of the party’s defeat and recommend reforms to strengthen the party for better performance in future polls.
While intra-party investigations offer valuable feedback to defeated political parties, they fail to provide an accurate picture of an electoral defeat given that the investigations ended with consultations with core party supporters, thereby, disregarding the views of a large majority of Ghanaians.
The findings of committee set up to investigate the electoral defeat of the NDC established that Ghanaian voters rejected the Mahama-led NDC based on the poor economic record, the lack of public confidence in the party’s campaign policies, the high perception of corruption, and the inward-looking nature of the administration.
The 2016 presidential elections were closely contested between Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (candidate for the opposition New Patriotic Party) and then incumbent President John Dramani Mahama (presidential candidate for the National Democratic Congress).
President Akufo-Addo emerged as the winner of the election with 5,755,758 votes while his main competitor, Mahama, received 4,771,188 votes, translating into almost a million (984,570) votes difference.
The NDC’s electoral defeat surprised many party members and observers, as it marked the first time in the Fourth Republic that an incumbent government had lost the elections in the first round and with such a huge margin.
-BY Daniel Bampoe