The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi Bosiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, has asserted that the party is strategically orchestrating the upcoming 2026 presidential primaries to favor Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.
Speaking to some NPP delegates, he disclosed that the party intends to repeat a precedent-setting approach similar to that used in 1998, which paved the way for John Agyekum Kufuor’s rise.
Chairman Wontumi explained that the decision to concentrate delegate voting power in the hands of selected party executives was deliberate and integral to the party’s strategy.
He said the NPP was intentionally repeating the same voting pattern as seen in earlier primaries, including the 1998 and 2023 cases, in order to secure Dr. Bawumia’s victory in 2026.
“Everyone here, in 1998 as we did, we repeated,” Wontumi said. “The people who voted in 1996, the same are voting in 2023 and we will repeat that in 2026. It’s the same pattern repeated. It is because of Bawumia that we are repeating you all. Just like previously, it was for Kufuor that the process was repeated.”
He defended what critics called a “scheme” in favor of Dr. Bawumia, emphasizing that the power sought through this election justified the strategy.
“If they say we have a scheme for Bawumia, so what? Whoever we scheme for, it is because of the power we want to win. That’s the reason we too scheme for him,” Wontumi stated.
Again, Wontumi detailed that changes in the delegate structure, including the addition of former executives and polling station executives who previously did not vote, were motivated by the desire to benefit Dr. Bawumia’s candidacy.
“At first, polling stations did not partake in the election, but now we’ve added them to vote. And also former executives, all will vote today, because of Bawumia,” he said.
Meanwhile, this top-down approach to electing party leadership has been criticized by many, including former NPP National Chairman Paul Afoko and former National Secretary and presidential aspirant hopeful Kwabena Agyapong.
Even the ruling party’s National Chairman, John Asiedu Nketia, has opposed such a move, insisting that “we don’t build a house starting from the top.”
They argued that since the party leadership’s tenure will end in the first quarter of next year, it would be necessary to allow their tenure to finish and elect new leadership to oversee who becomes the party’s flagbearer.
Source: www.Kumasimail/Kwadwo Owusu
