A year after the National Democratic Congress (NDC) returned to power following its victory in the 2024 general elections, Ghana appears to be regaining its footing. Inflation is easing, and the cedi is showing renewed strength against the dollar and other major currencies.
With the immediate post-election tensions fading, attention is gradually turning to the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), which is set to elect a new presidential candidate on January 31, 2026. Even before the official contest begins, intense debate has already emerged. While many within and outside the party believe Dr Mahamudu Bawumia remains a formidable contender, others, including some of his rivals, argue he should not be given a second opportunity.
That debate takes me back to the days following the 2024 elections, and to one conversation in particular with my neighbour, Aunty Evelyn, who runs a small convenience shop in my community.
We spoke shortly after the results were announced. She appeared disappointed, not angry, just quietly resigned.
When I asked who she voted for, she responded without hesitation: “I voted for Dr Bawumia.”
Her answer intrigued me. At the time, the economy was in distress, prices were soaring, the cedi was in free fall, and fuel and food costs were eroding profits, especially for small business owners like her. It seemed unlikely that anyone associated with the then-ruling NPP could still command public support.
But Aunty Evelyn had her reasons.
“I didn’t vote for the NPP,” she clarified. “I voted for Bawumia. There’s a difference.”
She was openly critical of the party. “The arrogance, the lack of accountability,” she said. “Dr Bawumia paid the price for his party’s mistakes. They stopped listening to the people, and it cost them.”
Like many Ghanaians, particularly small traders, she had felt the full weight of the economic crisis. Import costs had surged, the cedi kept depreciating, and expectations were high because Dr Bawumia, often described as an economic expert, was expected to prevent or resolve these challenges. Instead, he found himself constrained by the very system he served.
Her support for him, however, was not uncritical. “Yes, he was part of the government,” she admitted, “but if you listened carefully, he opposed some of the policies that hurt us, like the e-levy. He said it openly, but the party had already made up its mind.”
She also pointed to his digitalisation agenda as evidence of substance over rhetoric. “The Ghana Card, paperless ports, online tax systems, those things were real,” she said.
To her, Dr Bawumia’s shortcoming was not incompetence, but the burden of a party that had lost touch with its base.
She was not alone in that view. Many who voted for Dr Bawumia did so because they saw him as different, a technocrat with a modern outlook who perhaps deserved a chance without the baggage of party excesses.
Yet for most voters in 2024, the decision at the ballot box was driven more by emotion than analysis. Years of rising prices, mounting debt, and persistent currency instability had taken their toll. Public anger was widespread, and Dr Bawumia became a convenient target, fairly or not, because he had promised solutions to problems that worsened under his watch.
That same anger now shapes the internal NPP contest. Supporters insist he remains the party’s strongest option, experienced, widely known, and still trusted by a quiet but significant segment of the electorate. Critics argue that he has already had his chance and that the party must make a clean break from the past.
“Dr Bawumia wasn’t perfect,” my neighbour reflected, “but he had ideas. And he was honest about our challenges. I still believe he meant well.”
Today, with the NDC back in government and early signs of progress, ranging from fulfilled campaign promises to improving macroeconomic indicators, optimism is returning. But for voters like Aunty Evelyn, supporting Dr Bawumia in 2024 was not an error. It was a choice rooted in principle rather than popularity.
As the NPP approaches its January 31 decision, that distinction may prove more important than many expect. And sometimes, that alone is enough.
