President Nana Akufo-Addo has rallied the defeated aspirants of the New Patriotic Party’s recent Parliamentary Primaries to overcome their pain and unite to retain the party in power.
Although he acknowledged that many of the losers were important personalities playing critical roles in Parliament, he said elections were underpinned with either victory or defeat.
Seeking to console the aspirants some of who lost with very slim margins or through acrimonious campaigns, he said, “Those of us in politics know that these things happen. We know, to use the famous words of our onetime General Secretary, we have to continue to fear delegates.
“But we remain firm, in our belief, that losing one election doesn’t mean the end of your political life. I am a living example. I urge all of us to get over our disappointments quickly and unite to go before the country,” he said at the event to officially endorse him and Vice-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as the party’s presidential ticket for the December 7 elections.
Before breaking a jinx of losses on his way to attain his dream, President Akufo-Addo lost two presidential primaries (1996 and 1998), two presidential elections (2008 and 2012), before lucks smiled on him in 2016.
At least 42 members of the Majority in Parliament were swept away in the NPP Parliamentary primaries held on June 20. Some of the party’s big wigs including, the Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah, the Member of Parliament for New Juaben South; and Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, Ben Abdullah Banda; lost their seat in the contest in which fresh faces torpedoed ambitions of some of the party’s experienced hands.
With the elections less than six months away, the President wants the defeated candidates to close their ranks and present a united front of an election that will be a referendum on his four years in office.
“We have a good story to tell and we should go out to tell it. In every sector of our lives, we should show the difference between the NPP way of tackling problems and the way our opponents do it,” he said.
He issued a vigorous defence of his administration’s economic agenda on Saturday, claiming credit for changing the trajectory of the country’s economic recovery— while taking aim at the Mahama’s government’s record.
“We create a regulatory-enabled atmosphere, for businesses to flourish. They allow speculators to lure citizens into putting their money into dodgy enterprises.
“They bring our banks and financial services to near collapse. We clean it and restore confidence. They plunge us into dumsor, we keep the lights on. They look on clueless as hundreds of Ghanaian children exit school at JHS. We bring SHS and free TVET to prepare our children better to face life.
“They resort to crude language when faced with difficult arguments we realise the level of public discourse. We owe ourselves and to Ghana to win the December 7 election decisively. To make sure we keep the economy on track and not in the hands of people who will run it again into the ground,” he said to wild jubilation for the members of the National Council of the party.