National Chairman hopeful gor the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Paul Afoko has warned that Ghana’s democracy could be at risk if the New Patriotic Party (NPP) fails to rebuild and regain public confidence.
In an interview on Accra based JoyNews, Mr Afoko said one of the main reasons he decided to contest for the party’s national chairmanship was his growing concern that a weakened NPP could leave the country without a strong political balance.
He said that Ghana’s democracy depends on having a vibrant opposition capable of challenging the government and offering voters a credible alternative.
“The second reason that brought me was I thought our democracy is in danger. If our party is weakened further, our democracy will be in danger,” he said.
According to the former chairman, the NPP must begin the process of recovering from its electoral defeat and work towards returning to power.
“If our party does not stop the rot and begin the process of reclaiming lost ground and coming back to power, we’ll just go down,” he said.
Mr Afoko recalled a question posed to him by a journalist during the press conference where he announced his intention to contest the chairmanship. He said the question made him reflect deeply on the party’s current state.
“The journalist asked me a question. Initially I felt, ‘How do you ask me this?’ That was what I felt. But of course, I couldn’t say it,” he recounted.
He said, the journalist suggested that the NPP no longer enjoys the enthusiasm it once did among young supporters.
“He said, ‘These days your party T-shirt, it’s only truck pushers who wear it. We don’t see the young people who are vibrant in politics wearing your T-shirt anymore. What do you attribute it to?”
Mr Afoko described the comment as “another wake-up call”, saying it reinforced his belief that the party urgently needs to reconnect with the electorate.
“To be honest with you, I felt our party, if our party is further weakened, our democracy will be destabilised,” he said.
He warned that a significantly weakened opposition could create an unhealthy political system in which one party dominates Parliament.
“It becomes left-sided, one-party dominant, with over two-thirds majority in Parliament and therefore can do whatever they want with that majority while the other party is weakened,” he said.
Mr Afoko said these concerns ultimately convinced him to return to frontline politics and seek the party’s top organisational position.
“Those were the reasons that made me say, ‘No, I will put myself forward, and I’ll plead with my party people and say, look, this is the situation we are in. Let’s come back together,'” he said.
He also repeated his belief that factionalism has harmed the NPP and stressed that personal grievances should not stand in the way of rebuilding the party.
“If you want an example of somebody who has suffered from this factionalism, severely suffered, then I am the example,” he said.
“But at the same time, I have decided that it’s time for us to recalibrate our thinking and come back together,” he added.
