Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh (NAPO), the Running Mate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2024 general election, has attributed the party’s electoral defeat to unresolved internal issues rather than economic mismanagement.
Speaking in an interview with Umaru Sanda, NAPO highlighted governance challenges within the party as a critical factor behind the loss.
NAPO explained that such challenges are not unique to the NPP, pointing to historical lessons from the party’s experiences in the early 1990s.
He recalled how the party, after losing both the presidential and parliamentary elections in 1992, decided to boycott Parliament—a decision that was later acknowledged as a mistake.
“MPs were begging people to go and vote, but they said they were not going to vote. That is not about economic mismanagement, it is about a deep-seated problem the party hasn’t addressed. It is a party that bigots a government, and when that is done, the leadership of the party goes to the government. I am telling you it is a governance issue.
“You can’t imagine yourself to be a master of everything at every time. There are certain events that you may not be able to do anything about and it will hit you. It is not just the NPP that has suffered that.
“In 1992, we had zero representation in parliament. The country and the party learned. Because in the said year, the presidential and parliamentary elections when the party lost they wrote a stolen verdict and they decided that they were going to boycott parliament. It was a party decision.
“Subsequently, that same party met and said they shouldn’t have boycotted parliament. They said it was better for us to, with the few seats we won, than to boycott. So, the party changed, and the country changed and decided to fix both elections one day. So, that the snowball effect doesn’t affect us,” he stated.
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