NPP elections: Kwadwo Bamba’s first vice chair victory was a big surprise – Prof Smart Sarpong

Senior Research Fellow at the Kumasi Technical University, Professor Smart Sarpong, has stated that the election of Kojo Fosu Boadu, popularly known as Kojo Bamba, as First Vice Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was one of the biggest surprises of the party’s national executive elections.

Prof Sarpong said he had expected Kwadwo Bamba to secure one of the three vice-chairmanship positions but did not anticipate that he would emerge as the First Vice Chairman.

Speaking on Accra-based JoyNews’ AM Show on Monday, October 5, he said his prediction had placed Henry Nana Boakye, Nana Akomea and Kwadwo Bamba in the top three positions.

“For the position of the first vice, second vice and the third vice, for me, it is the biggest of all the surprises. I had Nana B as one, Nana Akomea as two, and then Kojo Bamba as three,” he said.

Kwadwo Bamba, however, topped the contest involving 13 candidates, securing 3,116 votes to become First Vice Chairman.

Henry Nana Boakye followed with 3,061 votes, while Nana Akomea obtained 2,987 votes to take the Third Vice Chairman position.

Prof Sarpong said the voting arrangement made it difficult to determine the preferences of delegates for the three vice-chairmanship positions because voters were required to select three candidates without ranking them.

He argued that a system requiring delegates to rank their preferred candidates as first, second and third choices would have provided clearer meaning to the results.