NPP Must Change Its Flagbearer to Win Future Elections – Ernest Owusu Bempah

Top NPP official and former Ghana Gas Communications Director, Ernest Owusu Bempah, has called on the NPP to change their flagbearer for the 2028 elections to win back power.

Speaking in an interview, Owusu Bempah said that based on his findings from speaking to NPP supporters on the ground, the party lost due to their choice of candidate – Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.

Bempah claimed that he spoke to many NPP supporters who said they refused to vote or voted for another party because the NPP presented the wrong candidate.

The veteran party operative said if the NPP wants to win the next elections, they have to present a candidate who has the support of the grassroots.

Bempah narrated an anecdote of a taxi driver he met who told him why he did not vote for the party in the 2024 elections.

“…I met a taxi driver who told me, ‘Mr Bempah, for the first time I voted for NDC, even though I’m an NPP supporter’,” he recounted. “He showed me his card. The reason [he did not vote for NPP] was that we did not bring the right candidate that they wanted to vote for. These are evidence on the ground. God is my witness!”

Bempah pushed back on claims that Dr Bawumia, who lost to Mahama in a landslide, must be brought back as the party’s flagbearer simply because other flagbearers did not win the Presidency on their first try. He said there is a shifting political climate that the NPP needs to rise to meet or risk continuing to lose more elections.

He added that he met some NPP supporters in New York who gave him the same criticism of party leadership. Bempah said based on his findings, Kennedy Agyapong is the one who has grassroots support, unlike Dr Bawumia.

“I was in New York; I was almost heckled by Ghanaians for not listening to the grassroots. ‘Bring Kennedy Agyapong, and we would vote for him,'” Bempah added. Asked if that meant Bawumia was the wrong candidate for the previous elections, he refused to answer, simply advocating for Agyapong.

The NPP is bracing for a major leadership race in 2028, in which the former Vice President and 2024 flagbearer, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, is expected to have a rematch with former Assin Central MP and businessman Kennedy Agyapong for the right to be the party’s flagbearer.