By Lawrence Odoom
A prominent political analyst, Dr. Kwame Asah-Asante, has criticzed Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) 2024 presidential candidate, for attributing the party’s electoral defeat to external factors rather than taking responsibility for its failures.
In a candid interview on Citi FM, Dr. Asah-Asante advised Dr. Bawumia to demonstrate boldness and integrity by acknowledging the party’s shortcomings.
Dr. Bawumia had earlier cited factors such as arrogance of power, high living costs, and unpopular policies as reasons for the NPP’s loss. However, Dr. Asah-Asante questioned the validity of the party’s post-election report, particularly regarding its methodology and ability to capture regional and constituency-specific issues.
“I want to see the instrument that they used to collect the data,” Dr. Asah-Asante said. “If the instrument did not try to elicit responses related to regional-specific issues and constituency-specific issues, then I have a problem with it.”
Dr. Asah-Asante emphasized that the NPP’s ability to recover from its electoral defeat hinges on its willingness to confront its shortcomings head-on. “They have a lot of work to do, but this approach won’t help them,” he said. “They need to sit down, analyze the report, and figure out how to address the issues.”
The political analyst urged Dr. Bawumia to be bold and admit where the party went wrong, stressing that acknowledging failures is essential to moving forward with integrity.
“All they need to do is to be bold and admit where they went wrong,” he said. “Acknowledge the failures, then move forward with integrity. But if you keep passing blame on others, you are running away from the truth.”
