NPP has two years to save itself, but is it learning the right lessons?
The New Patriotic Party has two years. Two years to convince millions of Ghanaians who abandoned it in 2024 that it deserves another chance. Two years to rebuild a party that went from governing Ghana to becoming a minority in Parliament. Two years to repair its image, reconnect with voters and convince a skeptical electorate that the NPP has changed. But before it can win back the country, it must answer a more difficult question: does it truly understand why Ghanaians rejected it in 2024?
The 2024 election was not an ordinary defeat. John Mahama secured 56.55% of the presidential vote against Mahamudu Bawumia’s 41.61%, while the NPP’s parliamentary representation collapsed from 137 seats to 80. The scale of the defeat was a political message that should have triggered serious introspection.
To its credit, the party commissioned the Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye Committee to examine what went wrong and has since embarked on a reorganisation exercise, culminating in regional elections and preparations for national executive elections scheduled for October 3, 2026. But reorganising a party is not the same as reforming it.
The NPP must confront the uncomfortable reality that it lost more than an election; it lost public trust. The economic difficulties under the Akufo-Addo administration were central to the 2024 election. Inflation, the cost of living, unemployment, business difficulties and the cedi’s instability were not merely statistics to voters. They were daily experiences. The NPP can point to COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine war and other external pressures, but explanations do not erase people’s experiences.
More damaging was the perception that some members of the government had become disconnected from ordinary Ghanaians. A government can have valid explanations for its failures, but when those explanations sound like excuses to citizens who are struggling, the political consequences can be devastating.
The NPP must therefore learn humility. It must also examine its communication culture. Too often, political communication became defensive rather than empathetic. Instead of simply telling Ghanaians why something could not be done, the party needed to demonstrate that it understood why people were frustrated. And now, as the party prepares for its national executive elections, it must resist the temptation to reward loyalty over competence. The next leadership team should not simply be chosen based on factional alliances, familiarity or political connections. It should be made up of people capable of rebuilding the party’s relationship with voters.
More importantly, the grassroots, in particular, must not be remembered only when elections approach. A party cannot disappear from communities for years and expect loyalty when it returns with campaign posters and promises. The NPP must listen to young people, traders, professionals, farmers and communities that feel disconnected from politics.
But there is another trap the party must avoid: building its entire 2028 strategy around the failures of the NDC. Opposition parties must scrutinise governments, but the NPP will need more than criticism to win back power. If it condemns government policies, it must provide credible alternatives. If it attacks unemployment, it must explain how it would create jobs. If it criticises economic management, it must demonstrate what it would do differently. Because Ghanaians do not simply need an opposition that says, “the government is failing.” They need one capable of saying, “here is how we would do better.”
The greatest danger, therefore, is not that the NPP will fail to reorganise before 2028. It is that it will reorganise without changing. If the party concludes that it lost because of poor communication, it can hire better communicators. If it believes its grassroots structure failed, it can appoint new organisers. But if it refuses to confront arrogance, disconnect, economic pain and the loss of public trust, then the fundamental problem remains.
Ultimately, two years is enough time to rebuild a political party. But only if the party is willing to rebuild more than its structures. The NPP must rebuild its relationship with the Ghanaian voter. Because the voters who decide the 2028 election will not be sitting at the party’s conferences. They will be in the markets, offices, classrooms, farms, taxis and online spaces, and many of them will be the same voters who walked away in 2024.
The NPP has two years. It can spend them preparing to win an election, or preparing to deserve one.
About The Author
