The Trojan Horse defeat; an auto destructive bullets that shot away NPP's votes

The New Patriotic Party has done quite well in several aspects of our economy including agriculture, the economy, employment and labour related issues. Their biggest prize yet is in the education sector.

With the introduction of the free SHS programme, the New Patriotic Party's approval rating went and has stood very high.

I have argued in my previous thoughts that the political appreciation of free SHS will only be felt significantly in areas that traditionally vote for the NPP.

The five northern regions that already enjoyed a scholarship for senior high school education before free SHS will not be affected much by the policy to switch their thumb.

Oti and the Volta regions may significantly not break their loyalty to the NDC despite the enormous benefits free SHS may have brought to them.

In the Greater Accra region, there are some people who will undoubtedly vote for the NPP because of free SHS, however, there are lot more people in the elite communities who will not be swayed by the policy because they could have paid for their ward's fees even without free SHS.

Significantly, Ashanti, Bono, Bono East, Western, Central, Eastern, Ahafo and Western North are areas NPP will reap the yields of free SHS. But there is a problem too. Invariably, these are the areas where galamsey crisis has hit the people hard.

The seized excavators, mining concessions and galamsey pit and the alleged bequeath of same to party people caused a lot of pain to many of the residents in the mining communities who depended hugely on galamsey for a living.

Again, the banking crisis like I mentioned in my earlier post affected areas where the NPP already have an upper hand or areas where votes will usually swing to either side. Most of these banks were located in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, and Western regions.

Even though we can say the entire country may have been affected by the banking crisis in some way, the germane question is- how many of the collapsed banks and financial institutions operated in the Upper East, Upper West, North East, Northern, Savannah and the Volta regions.

A chunk of the collapsed institutions were either in the swing regions or strongholds of the NPP. These "self-destructive" policies that was implemented with the right intent perhaps but rather turned out to hatch a very bad outcome will baldly hurt the NPP in this election.

The heartbreaking internal issues that will drag the Trojan horse into the camp of the NPP is how the party handled their parliamentary primaries. A lot of people are bitter and are ready to bite. If you visited most NPP strongholds or constituencies they won the parliamentary seat in the last election where there are issues this time around, the people will tell you that as for Nana he has no problem but the problem is with the parliamentary seat. A clear cut example is Akwatia and the rejection of Ama Sey.

The NPP constituencies with parliamentary candidature issues will usually complain that either their favourite wasn't allowed to contest in the primaries or someone was technically imposed on them to run unopposed. Alas! I see that but for the three black spots on the NPP, thus, galamsey, the financial institution crisis and the last-minute issue of mother serpent of corruption, the NPP looked better and gleam despite other setbacks they may have suffered. However, as the banking crisis and galamsey will neutralise their gains in their strongholds and areas they do well, their own internal issues with parliamentary aspirants will also wound them hard.

The self-destructive phenomenon will happen when the internal party issues about parliamentary aspirants will cause the opposition NDC to snatch most seats from the NPP to win a majority in parliament. In the plausible calculations where the presidential poll goes for a runoff because both candidates could not obtain the right mark to claim victory, the NPP will badly be affected. President Akufo Addo may lead in the first run but because the NDC may have won a majority in parliament, their chances may be boosted in the runoff to snatch victory.

Moreover, pundits have argued that when parliamentary candidates do well it also boost the chances of their presidential candidate. Per this observation, President Akufo Addo may drop some significant votes in areas where there are these parliamentary candidature disputes.

By the time an autopsy is conducted to know why the NPP had a lead in the first round but lost in the runoff, they would have noticed that their very members who voted skirt and blouse or gave away votes to independent candidates jetted the NDC candidates to overtake both the independent and the NPP aspirant causing a commanding lead for the NDC in parliament and harming their own party.

That would most likely happen in this year's election.

Iddrisu Fuseini