A member of the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) communication team, Dr. Palgrave Boakye-Danquah, has urged the party’s leadership to conduct a postmortem into its defeat in the Akwatia by-election.
The by-election, held on September 2, 2025, was won by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate, Bernard Bediako Baidoo, who polled 18,199 votes out of 33,819 valid ballots cast. His closest contender, Solomon Kwame Asumadu of the NPP, secured 15,235 votes, while Owusu Patrick of the Liberal Progressive Party (LPP) managed 82 votes. A total of 303 ballots were rejected. The election was held following the death of the sitting MP, Ernest Kumi.
Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Point of View with Sammi Wiafe on September 3, Dr. Boakye-Danquah said the party needed “an honest introspection” to identify the reasons behind its loss.
“I will ask our political party to do a postmortem, an honest introspection of what really went wrong during this by-election,” he suggested.
He questioned the party’s candidate selection process, referencing past internal contests in the constituency.
“Could we have looked at the 2016 primaries that had Ama Sey and a few others standing. Could we do the 2020 primaries that had Ama Sey and Ernest Kumi, where he beat Ama Sey by about four votes? Could we have looked at the 2024 primaries that took Ernest Kumi to parliament? Why didn’t the party have Ama Sey as the candidate, but a treasurer in the constituency to be the candidate?” he asked.
Dr. Boakye-Danquah maintained that the NPP must thoroughly review these concerns if it hopes to strengthen its chances ahead of the 2028 general elections.
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