The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) says a committee will be set up to determine the factors that caused the party’s electoral defeat in the 2008 elections. The party lost the cliff-hanger general elections by a marginal 0.94 percent to the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). Many reasons have been cited for the fall of the NPP, including the failure of the party to tackle pair-trawling activities in the Central Region. Speaking to Joy FM on Saturday, however, Chairman of the NPP, Mr Peter Mac Manu, said an internal audit will eventually bring out the reasons. At least director of the Nana Addo campaign team, Dr Konadu Apraku, did come under a barrage of criticisms from within the party for allegedly mishandling the affairs of the campaign, an accusation he has dismissed. Dr Apraku was hitherto hailed by bigwigs of the Danquah-Busia family as being a great performer but the party’s defeat earned him the disgust of some disgruntled members. Meanwhile former chairman of the NPP, Harona Esseku, blames the defeat of the party on “some regional and constituency executives” of the NPP. The Chronicle newspaper on Saturday reported that Mr Esseku had said funds sent from the headquarters of the party in Accra to the regions and constituencies were misappropriated by some regional and constituency executives and therefore did not get to the foot soldiers. “The national executives could not detect the malpractice on time, because they misconstrued the large number of people who were attending their rallies, to mean that the party was on course to winning the elections,” Mr Esseku was reported to as saying. Mr Esseku, who was the party’s chairman from 2001 to 2005, maintained that during his reign, because the foot soldiers were properly catered for, they were able to garner more support for the party in the constituencies. The NPP campaign team was perhaps, the most organised in the 2008 campaign trail with big guns of the party heading specific committees and teams. Although some analysts posit that the flag-bearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo surrounding himself with former contenders could have singed his fortunes, others believe Ghanaians simply wanted a “change”. With a year more for the five-year term of office of the national executives of the party to end, reports indicate top shots of the NPP are lacing their boots for a possible showdown in the race to elect new executives towards the 2012 elections. For now reasons for the defeat of the party remain speculations; the soon-to-be-conducted postmortem is expected to answer the essential questions. Story by Fiifi Koomson