A Political Scientist and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr Kwame Asah-Asante says for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to capture political power, it must invest in developing an ideal manifesto.  

This, he says, will help the party address its past failures whilst meeting the present needs of the ordinary Ghanaian.

“They need a strategy, workable strategy that will help them deal with the lingering challenges that confronted the party in the last elections.

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“They need a manifesto and by manifesto; I am talking about a manifesto which will resonate with the people. That is, it syncs with the interest of the ordinary on the street, everybody and the other end is your message,” he said.

His comments were in response to a question posed by host of JoyNews Today, Aisha Ibrahim, on strategies former president John Mahama must use to help realise his ambition of winning the 2024 elections.

 The political scientist explained that the strategies must include resources to mobilise people to galvanise support and sell their messages.

He stressed that the times the country is confronted with require messages which would give hope to the people.

Dr Asah-Asante added that “these are some of the basic things they need to do but to do that they need to hit the ground, take data and begin to analyse the data and put them along the lines. I am talking about what you want to begin to use them for your manifesto and tease them out for messaging.”

He said the circumstances surrounding the last elections and present conditions in Ghana are different and it is therefore, important the party reviewed its policies.

“If you look at the economy, I am not sure at that time, that was the nature of the economy, for which reason they do a manifesto that will suit the present circumstance. Today things have changed so they need to do a tweak on the manifesto to be able to bring it alive with the current realities on the ground.

“You are also looking at unemployment figures. I am not sure they stand the same. You need to work on that issue of infrastructure, are we seeing more for which reason you need a certain number to augment what already exists in the system,” he said

He reiterated that “they need to look at their manifesto one more time and make the necessary changes to suit the changing circumstances at the time, they can’t say that they would use the same thing and then use it for their campaign. That would be obsolete at birth when they go to the elections.”