Serious political parties like the NPP, were formed with the prime objective of winning elections to form government for the promotion of the socio-economic well-being of the citizenry and the development of the nation, through efficient management of the country’s resources. Every great vision or plan conceived by individuals or political parties for the development of a nation needs political power to power it into reality.

No political party governs from opposition. At best you can criticise, offer suggestions or act as a check on the governing party to some extent. If you are a serious party that wants to govern, you must first and foremost win
political power through an election. Decisions concerning elections, therefore, become the most crucial decisions in the life of every political party.

No factor is insignificant in politics

Electoral victories are determined by host of factors. Depending on where and when elections are conducted, some factors become more prevalent than others. However, no single factor in the basket should be considered insignificant since there is no such thing as insignificant number in politics. People have won and lost elections with unimaginably low margins. That should tell us every number counts in election, especially when it’s very competitive.

In this piece, I would want us to consider some of the important factors that can be found in the 2024 election basket and see how we can relate them to the marketability or chances of those who are seeking to bear the flag of our great party for the must-win 2024 election. Each factor is being considered in relation to the fact that politics is a game of strategy and numbers.

The factors in the basket

In the basket, we can find the economy factor, personality factor, religious factor, ethnicity factor and the trend factor. There could be more factors, but I want us to restrict ourselves to these five. By trend factor, I mean the 8
years jinx.

Two of the aforementioned factors, namely economy factor, which is always a major determinant and trend factor, to a large extent, put us in a disadvantaged position regardless of who our candidate would be. However, when it
comes to the economy factor, the effect wouldn’t be the same on each of our potential candidates. Some will certainly carry more weight of it than others.

With the way the economy is drifting, the Vice-President, the head of EMT, for instance, would carry more of the weight of the economy factor than the former Trade and Industry Minister and Agric Minister, who were part of the
government. It goes without saying that the Vice-President rose to fame on the back of his economic lectures and criticisms that sought to suggest to Ghanaians that he was holding the key to the country’s economic freedom.

3/5 must be the pass mark

Now, since the two factors seem unfriendly to us at the moment, particularly the economy factor, our next presidential candidate should be someone who can bring to the table significant advantage relative to the other three factors, to hold the balance. At least he shouldn’t be someone who would put us in a disadvantaged position relative to any of the other three factors. That would worsen our situation and weaken our chances. So, the pass mark must be 3 out of the 5 factors.

Ring-fencing our advantage

Now, if one considers the fact that in the last election, six out of the seven regions we won were Akan regions, then it stands to reason that having a candidate who can easily connect with those six regions, particularly the Ashanti Region, is very crucial for our victory in 2024. At least we should be able to ring-fence our performance in thoseregions to consolidate our advantage there. The Akan advantage is crucial for 2024, considering the fact that the
economy factor in particular has weakened us significantly.

Let's not downplay the religious factor

I have always said those who say religious factor wouldn’t play any role in election that determines who occupies the highest office of the land, should do some serious rethinking. The fact that a factor is unfavourable to you doesn’t
mean we should pretend or assume it’s unimportant. Every factor in the basket is a potential game-changer. It would, therefore, be suicidal for anyone to downplay any of them.

Quite honestly, it would be politically absurd for anyone to think that a significant section of the 71.2% Christians in the country wouldn’t be interested in who occupies the highest office of the land, following what just happened in Nigeria. Sorry, I have to say it as it is. Power is expensive!

Magnetic personality needed

Here I’m referring to what the candidate personally brings to the table in terms of his character, credibility, behaviour, utterances, vision, plan and performance track record. These virtues are things that bring strength to the
ticket to make the candidate magnetic to the floating voters. Besides, relative to the economy factor, it would be good for us if our candidate has some significant personal performance record that can be leveraged to shore up our
strength.

Our next presidential candidate must be someone who can cause some of the disappointed people to say “Due to what’s going on, I decided not to vote for the NPP again, but because of this man, I will vote for them again” or “I
have never voted NPP before, but because of this man I will vote for them for the first time” That’s the only way we can win the 2024 election.

To quote the wise man again, “When you have banana in your pocket, never try to bait monkeys with apple, for monkeys would prefer even a partially-rotten banana to apple”. Let’s wisely use our banana and we would be good to go! Oya, let’s stick to the strategy that has won us four victories and we would be good to go!