Posted on:
www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw
Owusu
Wednesday,
November 30, 2016
A Constitutional Law Professor, H. Kwasi Prempeh says Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s
continuous rise in the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is posing what he termed
‘mortal threat’ to the ruling National Democratic
Congress (NDC).
This, he said, had compelled NDC members to attack Dr. Bawumia’s
personality instead of questioning his capabilities.
Prof Prempeh, in an article, said he had made a curious observation,
saying “the rival attacks on the NPP’s Bawumia have not focused on his
suitability or qualification for the high office he seeks.”
“Bawumia’s political ascendancy in the NPP, however, threatens this
strategy and propaganda of the NDC in both the short and long term.”
Distasteful
Attacks
“In fact, the attacks have not even focused mainly on his claims and
message in the areas of the economy and economic management, many of which have
gone unanswered. Rather unusually, the
aspect of Bawumia’s candidacy that has earned him the ire and disproportionate
attention of the NDC is his ethno-regional identity as a ‘Northerner,’ he
pointed out.
“Mahama and his surrogates in the ruling NDC have suggested to
voters, especially in the Northern half of the country that as a Northerner,
Bawumia is in the wrong party; that he has no future in the NPP except as
second fiddle to the flagbearer; that there is even something inauthentic about
his Northerner identity. The CPP flagbearer has added that Bawumia is an ‘Accra
Northerner,” he said.
He quizzed: “Why are the NPP’s rivals fixated on Bawumia’s identity
as a Northerner and in a clearly disapproving way? What is it about Bawumia’s
ethno-regional identity that unsettles especially the NDC?”
Total Control
He said Dr. Bawumia’s “unprecedented visibility” in the NPP’s current
campaign, his strong command of issues, as well as his cross-party appeal and
likeability have cemented his status as a star politician both in the NPP and
on the national political scene more broadly.”
“Added to his relative youth, this makes Bawumia the politician to
watch, not only within the NPP, but also more importantly from the perspective
of the NDC.”
He said that “the NDC had self-consciously positioned itself within
the Ghanaian political terrain as the “non-Akan” party by tapping into a strain
of historical and emotive suspicions, prejudices, antagonisms and grievances,
both real and imagined, held against ‘Akans’ by a number of ethnic minorities
but Dr. Bawumia’s persistent rise is giving the NDC cause for concern.
NDC Strategy
Prof Prempeh said, “In this year’s election campaign, the NDC’s
identity-based ‘us versus them’ electoral strategy and politicking have been
strongly and overtly on display, especially when Mahama and his surrogates and
party leaders campaign before non-Akan audiences in the three northern regions
and the Volta Region. That this strategy has been perversely effective and
politically beneficial to the NDC cannot be disputed.”
“The NDC’s elites and strategists must know that given Bawumia’s
centrality in the current 2016 campaign and his national likeability and
appeal, victory for the NPP in the December 7 polls will instantly propel
Bawumia to front-runner status within a post-Akufo-Addo NPP.”
Bawumia As Veep
He said the NDC anticipating the prospect of Dr. Bawumia in office,
has made much of the fact that as vice president to President Kufuor, Vice
President Aliu Mahama, also a Northerner, failed to secure the NPP’s nomination
for a flagbearer-successor to Kufuor.”
“This fact, however, is not a precedent of much relevance or
applicability to Bawumia.”
“As a politician and despite his relative youth in Ghanaian
politics, Bawumia has earned, in his own right, a standing and following both
in the NPP and nationally that goes far beyond any that the late Aliu Mahama
could garner. Therefore, unlike Aliu Mahama, Bawumia’s emergence as
front-runner, in the event of a 2016 NPP victory, will make him the man to beat
and thus the most likely choice of the NPP as flagbearer in the immediate
post-Akufo-Addo era.”
Likely Leader
He said “in the absence of Nana Akufo-Addo, Dr. Bawumia is likely to
lead the NPP in the future since he is accepted by all in the party but if,
however, the Akufo Addo/Bawumia ticket were to suffer defeat in the December
polls, that outcome would dim, though not extinguish entirely the prospects of
Bawumia as likely flagbearer of the NPP in the immediate post-Akufo Addo era.”
“In short, the logical effect of an NPP victory in the December 7,
2016 polls will be to put Dr. Bawumia on course to claiming the party’s
flagbearership after Nana Akufo Addo’s term ends. Such a development would
instantly undercut a central pillar on which the NDC’s identity-based electoral
strategy and coalition has been constructed, namely, the notion that the NPP is
an Akan-exclusive party, and thus, not a political home for Northerners or
other non-Akans.”
Prof. Prempeh said the NDC’s concern extends beyond the immediate
impact of losing the 2016 election, saying “the greater worry is that the
success of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia ticket will set in motion a political dynamic
that will almost certainly produce a Bawumia at the top of the NPP presidential
ticket and thereby weaken significantly the efficacy and viability of the “us
versus them” identity politics that has become a central tenet of the NDC way
of politics.”
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