Some well-meaning supporters are worried about the utterances of certain flagbearer aspirants of the NPP and their supporters. Their behaviour makes observers wonder whether the leadership of the party prescribed any ground rules.
It is like the aspirants have already launched into the 2024 general election campaign mood forgetting that the primaries are purely internal matters that must be conducted like a big family.
Again, we wonder whether the aspirants and by extension the NPP leadership have learnt any useful lessons from the 2007 primaries when 17 personalities contested. We remind the NPP of the popular dictum that those who do not learn from history are doomed to fail. If they have refused to see the harm their actions are likely to cause the party, we urge them to step back and reflect on their messages so far to judge if they really trust in the ‘Breaking the 8’ mantra or it is mere sloganeering.
Now and again, we as a people have bemoaned the shortness of the four-year mandate of the President under the Fourth Republican Constitution and missed no opportunity to call for a second look at the provision to give the government ample space to implement its policies and programmes.
Thus, the person who thought of ‘Breaking the 8’ as the way to go must be commended for such an innovation as the way to go to cure this challenge.
The irony of the present problem in the NPP is that whereas all the aspirants and the generality of the supporters have bought into the campaign mantra, their actions seem to be derailing efforts at winning the 2024 general elections. Some of these aspirants who are in their comfort zones do not care if the party finds itself in opposition again as happened in 2008.
Even the pain of a hung Parliament and the difficulties it imposes on the Akufo-Addo government to implement its mandate is lost on especially those who have elected to lead the party. These aspirants seem to have forgotten that this exercise is an internal matter that gives them the opportunity to see themselves.
Presently some of the aspirants have lost the plot and have chosen the destructive path of insulting their opponents to gain advantage. We make it clear to them that personal attacks will not win them the day but “magic wand” in their hands to help the party to retain power with majority in Parliament.