A New Patriotic Party (NPP) communicator, Awal Mohammed, has defended the party’s habit of picking candidates by demographic calculation, saying Mahamudu Bawumia was chosen to court northern and Muslim voters.
Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile, Mohammed argued that elections turn on where a candidate comes from and where the votes sit, not on personal popularity alone. He said the party “chose Dr Bawumia strategically because he is from the North,” and pointed to the flagbearer’s Muslim background as a deliberate pull for support in the region. Bawumia, who won the NPP’s presidential primary in January, is a northerner and a Muslim.
Mohammed claimed the strategy has paid off, citing constituencies where he said the party’s numbers improved after such calculated choices.
He was less generous about former Trade Minister Alan Kyerematen, questioning his electoral record and asserting that Kyerematen has never truly won an election. Kyerematen lost successive NPP presidential primaries before leaving the party, and his independent run in 2024 made little dent.
The communicator also turned his fire on the United Party (UP), the outfit Kyerematen built after quitting the NPP in 2023. He accused its communicators of acting out of bitterness rather than conviction, arguing that resentment, not policy, drives their attacks on the NPP. He went further, claiming the UP stands out among opposition forces for spending as much energy fighting fellow opposition figures as the governing party.
The UP rejects that framing, casting itself as a credible alternative to Ghana’s two-party order. Analysts remain split on its prospects, with some suggesting its main effect could be to dent Bawumia rather than to win power outright.