The Alan Factor and the Devastation Effect of Defections

Many Ghanaians are out and about condemning Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen with what they called an abysmal performance in the General Elections on December 7, 2024. But the issue here is that he placed fourth and beat six established parties.

Alan Kyerematen, a pillar and founding member of the New Patriotic Party, was one of the leading members, until he departed to run independently after what he claimed was mistreatment over almost seventeen years, after he ceded victory to H.E. Nana Akufo-Addo in the party’s 2007 presidential primary.

I am not here to defend or condemn him for what he did. I only want to draw attention to how defections can have devastating effects on political parties and how Alan’s case, may not be an exception.

In 1978, after William Ofori-Atta (Paa Willie) defected from the UP Tradition, he founded his own party, the United National Convention (UNC). Paa Willie would not accept the majority decision of forming a new party without including non-UP people who had converted. The rest formed the People Front Party (PFP) in 1979.

The elections were run on June 18, 1979 and out of 140 seats, the Nkrumaist People’s National Party, led by Dr. Hilla Limann won 71 seats, the PFP won 42 seats and the UNC won 13 seats. It is interesting to note that in a number of constituencies, when the number of votes a PFP candidate had is added to the UNC candidate’s, the figure exceeds that of the winning PNP candidate.

This defection cost the UP Tradition deny it the majority seats in Parliament. Also interesting to note, is the presidential result. Dr. Hilla Limann led with 631,559 votes (35.32%) and Victor Owusu came second with 533,928 votes (29.86%) and Paa Willie secured 311,265 votes (17.41) to place third. If Paa Willie had not defected, it could be said that the PFP presidential candidate may secure 845,184 votes (42.26%) and would have gone into the run-off with majority seats in Parliament.

It is very obvious who will win the second round.

In 2000, there was a breakaway group from the NDC which went to form the National Reform Party. In a sizable number of constituencies, the total votes of the NDC and the Reform Party candidates exceeded what the NPP candidates had to win the seat. The NPP would not have won majority seats in the 3^rd Parliament.

For example, NPP’s Hon Alex SeiduSofoof Damango constituency secured 8,012 votes (45.90%) to win the seat. Nelson Y. Yakubu of the NDC secured 7,665 votes (43.90%) and the National Reform Party candidate, Ewuntomah C. Boreche secured 377 votes (2.20%). If there were no division and defection in the NDC camp, whoever would be its candidate would have secured 8,042 votes to win the seat.

Also, Hon. John Achiworlor of the NPP won the Navrongo Central seat with 11,246 votes (41.5%) while Clement T. Bugase of the NDC secured 11,103 votes (40.90%) and Kaguah A. Castor of the National Reform Party, secured 604 votes (2.20%).  It was another seat lost to the NDC.

There are some more, however these two examples are to demonstrate the devasting effects, divisions and defections can create for political parties.

So, how does Alan come in? He left the NPP and run independent, so he had no parliamentary candidates to ruin NPP’s chances of dominating Parliament.

Election 2024, has its mysteries. Why should the winner not secure millions of votes more than what he had in 2020? And why should the second-place candidate, lose over 2 million votes than his predecessor had in 2020?

Why should millions of Ghanaians, most likely NPP supporters and sympathizers stay away from the polls, which resulted in badly affecting the chances of both its presidential and parliamentary candidates?

It could be for this reason. In 2007, Nana Addo stood in front of party faithful in Legon and publicly pronounced that Alan would succeed him. But when he won the presidency in 2016 and came into office in 2017, the Institution made sure that Alan was not going to get the nod. And everybody was watching with shock and amazement.

Then openly in public, this disregarding of Alan, was displayed when during a party rally in Assin North for the bye-election, the party’s National Organizer, Nana B, snatcheda mic from Alan when he was about to speak to the crowd and handed it over to Bawumia who just arrived. This show of disrespect to an adult, might have set minds wondering whether NPP was a party in peace, unity and respect for one another.

Nana B, by the way was about 10 or 11 years old in 1992, when people like Alan Kyerematen was sacrificing to build the NPP. When a child is allowed by his family to disrespect an older person, people begin to believe that, that family is not worth the name. They will conclude that children are reared there and not brought up.

Unfortunately, this was the picture that was painted to Ghanaians. So, most likely when Alan left the NPP to run independent, many may have concluded that all was not well in the party. But being dye-in-the-wool supporters of the party, they will never vote for any candidate.So, the only choice was to stay away from the polls. Of course, they were not convinced that Alan would win the elections and so, it was better not to go to the polls and have your little finger messed up with ink.

This may explain the desertion from the polls by millions of voters. But this should not take the credibility of victory from the NDC. It worked for victory and it deserves it. No one should attempt to take it away from the NDC. It presented a united front, a family at peace with one another, while the NPP was having internal conflicts. Who should Ghanaians seriously vote for? A party coming in peace and with peace or the one coming internally at war?

The NPP has a lot of work to do, if it must gain the confidence of Ghanaians, again. Unfortunately, the master administrator, Stephen Ntim who was deliberately denied the national chairmanship position for sixteen years, came in when all was rotten and bad. I may only plead that he is given a second chance to do what he knows best.

I am not advocating for the return of Alan. He should be allowed to be. What NPP has to do now is to fix the problems within and remove all forms of democratic dictatorship in the party and come out more united. Then in 2028, by the grace of God, NPP will win the elections after presenting a clean face of honesty and sincerity to all Ghanaians.

Hon. Daniel Dugan

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.

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