Say goodbye to your ‘breaking the 8’ – Prof Kobby Mensah to NPP

The chances of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to cause a historic ‘breaking the 8’ in Ghana’s political space may just have been dealt with a big blow, an associate professor of political marketing at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) has said.

According to Prof. Kobby Mensah, this may just be the time for the NPP to say goodbye to that campaign.

He explained that the resignation of Alan Kyerematen, a leading member of the party and a former flagbearer aspirant, is the biggest threat to the hope of the NPP to achieve its historic target.

“Clearly, if NPP was really serious about ‘breaking the eight’ and there was any significant possibility, I think that his departure to become an independent candidate actually nails that chance of them ‘breaking the eight’,” he stated, a 3news.com report has said.

He stressed that those who do not see the resignation of the former Minister of Trade and Industry as a threat should be aware that his roots in the Ashanti Region, where the NPP has its largest support base, have just been threatened with a possible split.

“Apart from the fact that he has significant following within the NPP itself, he is from the Ashanti [Region], a crucial constituency for the NPP and, for that matter, where perhaps his following is quite strong.

“I don’t see how the NPP with Alan Kyerematen’s candidacy and the possible intense competition in terms of campaigning, don’t forget campaigns have effect in elections’ outcomes. If he is able to mount a very rigorous, compelling campaign, I suspect the Ashanti will be one of the significant areas that is going to have a very heavy intensive campaigning. And that means that he could possibly chip away significant amount of votes to deny NPP the 75 percent and above that perhaps they need to win elections. So, I think it is really a big blow to the NPP especially in the Ashanti Region,” he is reported to have said.