The danger of attacking political opponents on baseless, flimsy, cooked stories

Some communicators of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have recently resorted to attacking the personalities of their prospective parliamentary candidates in the 2024 general elections.

As far as these inexperienced party communicators are concerned, their candidates can only win the elections when they manage to use flimsy, baseless, cooked stories to tarnish the reputation of their opponents.

This has resulted in the issuance of hollow, self-inflicting press statements by the party activists of these two major political parties. Due to the hollowness of these press statements, however, their intended object are not achieved.

These NDC and NPP party activists might have been influenced by their poor understanding of modern day political propaganda to engage in this political suicidal mission. It is therefore necessary to sharpen their knowledge in this political tool or weapon called propaganda.

The concept of propaganda is as old as human civilization. However, the term became common in Europe due to the missionary activities of the Catholic Church. It was used as a persuasive tool to spread the Catholic faith.

The centrality of propaganda as effective tool of communication was felt when Pope Gregory XV established the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome in 1622. This Commission of Cardinals was charged to spread the faith and regulate church affairs in heathen lands. (www.historians.org.about-aha-and)

Propaganda began to gain grounds during the First World War, when political and military leaders used it as a tool of effective, communication to persuade citizens for or against a course of action. From this, it is clear that propaganda does not mean lying against political opponents with allegations that cannot stand the test of time.

Consequently, propaganda has become an effective tool of political communication among politicians and policy makers. In this vein, it is employed to convince people to accept a political candidate or a government policy.

Unfortunately, however, the inexperienced party communicators of the NDC and NPP in the Awutu Senya West Constituency have misconstrued the term to mean lying to dent the image of political opponents for which reason they have recently resorted to attacking the leading personalities of the two parties.

Having examined the issues raised by these two groups, however, I am convinced that they are threading on dangerous part that can be galvanized by the smartest among them to completely annihilate the other.

This stems from the fact that the issues they raise are flimsy and baseless. At the end of the day, the group with intelligent propagandists can digest deeper, the very cooked stories their opponents throw at them and turn them into blessings for their candidate.

Moreover, the flimsy nature of the issues being raised can also cause the electorates to view those propagating such needless messages as a group of dishonest people who have no respect for them and that is where the danger lies.

Lastly, since nobody knows what the future beholds, it is dangerous for these youth to be falsely accusing these political leaders who are doing their best to impact the lives of the people.

For the good of the Awutu Senya West Constituency, the leaders of these inexperienced communicators must with immediate effect, call them to order as well as organise communication workshops form them before they cause their own down fall.

The author is a political activist and a social commentator.