A-Plus And Mahama's Political Strategy Behind "TPP"

Former President John Dramani Mahama is still very bitter about his 2016 electoral defeat, and he is ready to do anything possible to not just win but take it back from the very same person who took it from him, a reason he is employing all strategies to win the 2020 general elections of which "The People's Project (TPP)" being led by A Plus is just one of them.

Below is my analysis of the simple political strategy Mahama through A Plus seeks to achieve with the "TPP" agenda.

Note, my careful analysis of all Ghana's general elections that have brought about change has proven that it has mostly been characterized by three main things;

A) Full support of the opposition party by all its members (Core and Sympathizers), where most members of such an opposition party who got disgruntled along the way for a reason or another also join and give back their full support and votes to the party

B) A swing of votes of the floating voters from the ruling party to the opposition party

C) A significant number of the members of the ruling party get disgruntled

With my above analysis, I will continue with how Mahama and A Plus through their "TPP" agenda intend to increase their 2020 electoral victory chances.

With findings from research through the 2019 National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential primaries' data analysis and other research strategies, it can be verified that NDC under John Mahama as flagbearer has a huge support of the party from the grassroot to the party leadership; meaning NDC under Mahama has achieved the point (A) above. Since the point (A) has been achieved, he, as a result, seeks to achieve the points (B) and (C) to increase his chances of winning the 2020 general elections.

And to achieve the points (B) and (C) is where he would need known New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Apolitical (Neutral) people to include in his strategies through playing on their emotional and psychological needs/disagreements/dissatisfactions/thirst to get it done, and that is why A Plus, Kelvin Taylor, some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and others are gradually getting into the picture of John Mahama's political-strategic plan.

Since this article is centered on the strategy behind "A Plus and his TPP agenda", I will make sure not to sway off that path.

Four things that prove "TPP" is targeting to achieve the points (B) and (C) are because of A Plus' NPP tag, TPP's Independent Presidential and Parliamentary agenda, Close resemblance of the acronym/initials of the New Party Party (NPP) to the acronym/initials of the "The People's Project (TPP)" [NPP~TPP], and TPP's Neutral and pressure group brand it has been given through its objective of bashing, wiping and getting both NPP and NDC to succumb its demands.

Note, TPP's Neutral and Pressure group brand seeks to get the floating voters to swing their votes from the NPP to the NDC or to an Independent or not to vote at all, and this strategy is important to Mahama and A Plus because any drop in a party's previous votes either through voting for another or not voting at all is still an increase in percentage for an opponent. A Plus through TPP seeks to achieve this through influencing many apolitical/neutral individuals and societies like musicians, actresses, and other organizations to join the agenda. This strategy seeks to achieve the Point (B).

More so, since A Plus has always been known to have an NPP brand, his actions against the two parties will not highly negatively affect NDC members but will highly negatively affect the NPP through his action's influence of some NPP members to turn disgruntled and through that not to vote at all or vote against NPP. Also note, since A Plus' 2016 campaign actions got some people to vote for NPP, this agenda of his is as result likely to get NPP to lose some of such people whom his actions in 2016 got to vote for the party. This strategy seeks to achieve the Point (C).

Furthermore, with TPP's Independent Presidential and Parliamentary aspirants' agenda, since TPP has a neutral brand and A Plus has an NPP brand, majority of the votes that their Independent Presidential and Parliamentary candidates will pull will come from the NPP because the majority of the votes of the floating voters went to NPP in 2016 and also majority of the votes which A Plus created out of his 2016 campaign also went to NPP, and so if A PLUS and TPP put in place strategies to snatch such votes then it will certainly be snatched from the NPP and not the NDC, and as I indicated above "any decrease in votes of a political party is an increase in percentage for its opponent". This strategy seeks to achieve Points (B) and (C).

More over, since TPP and NPP have acronyms/initials looking very alike, if TPP uses this same acronym/initials on the ballot paper; since they have already made known their intentions to contest, it has the tendency to confuse some NPP members who would want to vote for NPP to mistakenly vote for TPP. This strategy seeks to achieve the Point (C)

Nana Kwadwo Akwaa

Member, Critical Thinkers International (CTI)