Ghana’s Vice president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has been elected the 2024 flagbearer for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), winning by 118,210 votes in the party primaries today.
Of the four contestants, the polls were heavily contested between two key aspirants – Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and Assin-Central Member of Parliament, Kennedy Agyapong.
Performance of all four aspirants
| Aspirants | Votes | Votes in % |
| Dr. Mahamudu Bawmia | 118210 | 61.47% |
| Kennedy Agyapong | 71,996 | 37.41% |
| Dr. Afriyie Akoto | 1,459 | 0.76% |
| Addai-Nimoh | 731 | 0.41% |
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Ahead of the elections, Bawumia was tipped by most political analysts and polls to win the primaries.
In the current government, he has also enjoyed wide support from appointees, who say he is the best man to beat the candidate of the main opposition party, John Dramani Mahama in the 2024 presidential elections and enable the NPP Break the Eight, a slogan that has come to define the party’s hope of a continuous win beyond the two-terms despite a Ghanaian voting pattern of changing government after eight years.
“Bawumia has the integrity, he has the intellect, he has the experience, and he has the vision to lead the NPP to victory in 2024 and to break the eight. He is the only candidate who can do it,” said Attorney-General and Minister of Justice at the party’s headquarters today.
However critics say his touted competence remains how to be seen, especially since he supervises an economic management team that’s struggling to get the country out of an economic mess.
Ghana’s debt is now at appreciable levels, largely fueled by the government’s continuous borrowing, despite interventions to raise money locally, like the introduction of the E-levy, a 1% tax on all financial transactions.
According to Bank of Ghana records, the country’s public debt rose to $49.7bn at the end of April.
This and many others ultimately led the government back to the IMF, against its promise of never engaging the IMF for an intervention.
There have been calls from some that Dr. Bawumia should have stepped down from the race in light of the economic challenges the country is facing. One of such was Political Affairs Chairman of the Convention People Party (CPP), Kwame Jantuah.
“Look at where this country finds itself, we shouldn’t find ourselves where we are today because all the hope was put in him. The Vice President himself in one of his speeches said we have the men and mentioned the litany of NPP members who he felt could do the job.
“He gave confidence to the people of Ghana, where is that confidence now, where is that good will? That good will he came in with in 2017 where is that good will today,” Kwame Jantuah said on Star FM’s programme last month.
