Pitch Your Campaign Messages Without Personal Attacks - NPP Presidential Aspirants Told

Professor Smart Sarpong, a Senior Research Fellow of the Kumasi Technical University, has reacted to the political tantrum that some aspirants for presidential position of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) have been throwing at one another.

In the build-up to the NPP primary to elect their flagbearer, the aspirants have been pitching their messages to the delegates to solicit their votes.

In order to achieve their aim, some aspirants have begun picking on their contenders; a recent case is the Assin Central Member of Parliament, Kennedy Agyapong attacking the personality of Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and questioning his competence to lead the New Patriotic Party to victory in the 2024 elections.

Kennedy Agyapong, during his campaign tour in Kintampo East on Sunday, July 16, 2023, expressed disappointment in the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government over the depreciation of the Cedi and their resort to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout.

The Assin Central MP appealed to the delegates not to elect any candidate who will take the nation to the IMF stressing same faces cannot be trusted to lead the party to break the eight.

This, he said, to tell the delegates to vote against the Vice President who is the Head of the Economic Management Team and one of the main contenders in the NPP's impending primary.

"We will have troubles if we don't do a clean campaign because I will reply to every claim made against me. You call yourself a strategist but when we were taking over power the dollar was GH¢4, today one dollar is GH¢12 and yet you call yourself a strategist," he fired at the Veep.

But Prof. Smart Sarpong has cautioned the aspirants to stop finding fault with one another.

He asked them to note that it is their party that has given them the opportunity and hope to become President, so their campaign messages should be tailored to inform their supporters and the delegates on their "plans for the future of the party and the Republic of Ghana".

"You can tell us about how you have been supportive to the party. You need the party delegates' votes, so tell them the relationship you have lived with them over the period which should be their focal point to vote for you", he stressed.

To him, the personal attacks won't help them and the party.

"I am a fact finder. I am not a fault finder...In fact, I will never contest any position by finding fault with my next person," he said in a panel discussion on Peace FM's morning show "Kokrokoo".