Key resignation adds strain to ruling party 2024 re-election chances in Ghana
Alan Kyerematen has been a prominent feature of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Ghana’s current ruling party, since it was founded in 1992, but yesterday resigned ‘with immediate effect’. According to his televised statement, Kyerematen aka Alan Cash will no longer run in the NPP primaries. Kyerematen will instead run in the 2024 presidential elections as an independent candidate under a new ‘Movement for Change’ banner.
No party, no peace
The news is shocking but perhaps not surprising. Kyerematen resigned from the party once before in 2008 but was convinced to return to the party on the basis of expectations that have not now been met. Instead of backing Kyerematen to ‘break the eight’ – i.e., win a third consecutive NPP term in government – the party leadership have thrown their weight behind the current vice president, Mahamadu Bawumia. Alan Cash’s pivot is significant for several reasons.
He has been an important member of the party since its founding in 1992 and still appears popular in the NPP heartland, Ashanti. This region is about 10% of the electorate on its own and accounted for 27% of the votes drawn by the outgoing president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo (NADAA) in 2020.
With or without electoral success, the Movement for Change themes and policy objectives outlined by Kyerematen yesterday could enter political discourse. For example, calls for national unity government, national resource management reforms that require greater local beneficiation, and ‘positive neutrality’ in engagement with the international community.
Outlook. Spoiler alert
At present, there is no evidence as yet that Kyerematen is trying to create a new party and pull MPs away from the NPP. To quote his statement yesterday, “what Ghana needs now is a new leader and not a new political party”.
Taking him at his word, it is difficult to imagine a candidate winning the December 2024 presidential election without extensive party-political machinery behind him or her. Others have tried over the years. They were not successful. See Augustus ‘Goosie’ Tanoh and Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings in the early 2000s and 2010s.
That said, the margin between the NPP and the NDC at the ballot is often slim. The Movement for Change does not need to win the presidency to prevent Bawumia or whoever wins the NPP primaries from taking over at Jubilee House. It only needs to dampen the NPP turnout. Especially if (a) the other major NPP aspirant, Kennedy Agyapong, were to lose and take it badly, and (b) the macroeconomic crisis remains at its current pitch.
The NPP is expected to give an official response to the resignation today (26 September) and hold the next leg of its primaries on 04 November.