Bawumia Wins Placeholder Slot, Ken Rejected While Adutwum and Old-Horse- Agyapong Disappoint
Front Desk Analysis
The governing New Patriotic Party has turned to the man who helped lead it to its worst-ever electoral defeat, a move insiders describe as a managed succession designed to protect the old guard and delay an inevitable internal reckoning.
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia was declared the party’s flagbearer for the 2028 presidential election, a foregone conclusion after what rivals claim was a carefully orchestrated process to sideline meaningful competition.
Party heavyweights, reeling from the historic loss in 2024, closed ranks to ensure the former Vice-President’s victory, amending timelines and bending constitutional norms to present a unified front, multiple sources within the NPP told The New Republic.
The numbers, however, reveal a party in transition, not consolidation. Bawumia’s share of the delegate vote fell from 61% in the previous contest to 56%, while his main rival, firebrand MP Kennedy Agyapong, collapsed from 37% to 23%.
The real story is the dramatic rise of Bryan Acheampong, the powerful Former Minister of Food and Agriculture and a former military officer, who rocketed to 19%.
Bryan Achaempong disclosed his victory was a result of only a four months campaign.
“Ken’s ambition is finished. This was his last dance,” a senior party figure from the Agyapong camp said. “Bryan is now the king-in-waiting. He has been anointed as the next contender, the 2032 candidate. This primary was as much about managing Bawumia’s exit as his coronation.”
The campaign was poisoned by mutual accusations of subterfuge. Agyapong’s supporters allege the Bawumia camp covertly funded and promoted Acheampong’s bid to split the critical Akan delegate vote in the Ashanti and Eastern regions, a charge Acheampong’s team denies.
Conversely, Bawumia allies whispered that the opposition National Democratic Congress favoured Agyapong, seeing him as a weaker candidate, and had even facilitated business contracts for his supporters.
“These are classic disinformation tactics in a war of attrition,” said a political strategist with ties to both camps. “It’s about painting your opponent as a traitor or a puppet. The truth is less important than the damage done.”
The primary also exposed the waning influence of populist Pentecostal prophets, several of whom had loudly predicted an Agyapong victory. Their very public failure has sparked a backlash against the politicisation of prophecy, undermining a once-potent force in Ghanaian electoral politics.
Bawku’s tinderbox
Beyond Accra’s political scheming, Bawumia’s victory has immediate and dangerous repercussions in the volatile Bawku region, where a chieftaincy and land conflict between the Mamprusi and Kusasi has led to protracted violence.
Bawumia is Ghana’s first northern Muslim vice-president and a Mamprusi. His triumph has ignited jubilation in Mamprusi communities, which see it as a major political bolster. “It has absolutely hardened positions,” a conflict analyst in the Upper East Region said. “The message here is that the ‘Bukari Skin’ will never go to the Kusasis. This isn’t just party politics anymore; it’s existential. It makes a negotiated settlement far more difficult and raises the risk of renewed violence.”
A weak hand for 2028
The consensus among strategists across the political spectrum is that the NPP has chosen a candidate who cannot win in 2028. The party is saddled with the record of the Akufo-Addo administration, from which Bawumia has struggled to distance himself.
The NDC government, led by President John Mahama, is expected to focus its campaign on consolidating economic gains and presenting itself as the competent steward of a recovering nation.
Bawumia’s challenge is now to assert authority over a fractured party. His attempts to carve out an independent identity and blame the party’s old structures for past failures are likely to trigger fierce resistance from the very establishment that just engineered his victory.
This sets the stage for four years of internal sabotage and factional warfare, further weakening the NPP’s electoral prospects.
The long game
The NPP’s calculation appears to be one of managed decline. By installing Bawumia, the party avoids a bloody civil war between Agyapong and Acheampong now. It accepts a likely defeat in 2028, hoping the NDC will overreach or the economy will falter.
This would then clear the way for Acheampong, seen as a harder-edged, security-minded figure, to lead a revitalised opposition charge in 2032.
For now, Bawumia is less a leader and more a placeholder. His fate is to preside over a party nursing its wounds, fighting itself, and waiting for its next champion.
History’s judgment of him may be less about 2028, and more about whether he can keep the NPP in one piece long enough for that 2032 rebirth to begin.