BY Issah Olegor
As delegates of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) converge in Kumasi for the party’s National Delegates Conference, the National Chairmanship contest has increasingly centred on what each aspirant intends to do with the position if given the mandate.
For Boakye Kyeremateng Agyarko, his campaign is built around the argument that the National Chairmanship should be treated not merely as an influential party position, but as a working responsibility focused on rebuilding the NPP and preparing the party for the 2028 general election.
Agyarko’s campaign presents him as a candidate whose political history is closely connected to the development of the NPP. He has served the party in several capacities, including as a campaign manager, policy adviser and Cabinet minister. His campaign also highlights his involvement in the party from its formative years.
According to the campaign, Agyarko did not initially approach the chairmanship contest simply as a personal political ambition. Rather, constituency chairpersons, Members of Parliament, founding elders and grassroots supporters approached him following the NPP’s defeat in the 2024 general elections and urged him to contest.
He subsequently embarked on a nationwide campaign, visiting all 16 regions and engaging constituency executives, polling-station-level activists and other party members.
The central message from those engagements, according to his campaign team, has been that the NPP’s grassroots structures remain fundamental to the party’s future and should receive greater attention, resources and organisational support.
A Five-Point Agenda for the NPP
Agyarko has also sought to distinguish his campaign by presenting what he calls the V.O.T.E.S. Agenda, a five-point programme aimed at reorganising the party ahead of the 2028 elections.
The first component is a Victory Plan in 90 Days, under which he proposes to produce a comprehensive campaign strategy within his first three months as National Chairman to push Dr Mahamudu Bawumia presidential agenda.
The second is One Party, One Rule Book, which calls for uniform application of party rules without favouritism or factional treatment.
The third, Trained, Tracked and Counted, focuses on building what his campaign describes as a clean and digitised membership register in which every party member can be properly identified and accounted for. The fourth is Every Executive Resourced, which proposes stronger logistical and financial support for constituency and polling-station structures, with resources reaching the grassroots rather than remaining concentrated at the party’s national headquarters.
The fifth pillar, Secure Every Ballot, focuses on protecting the integrity of the party’s electoral operations, from individual polling stations through to the national collation process. The campaign says the proposals are intended to respond to concerns raised during Agyarko’s engagements with party members, particularly the financial burden placed on grassroots executives, concerns about membership records and dissatisfaction with internal divisions.
Survey and Polling Claims
Agyarko’s campaign has also pointed to polling conducted during the chairmanship race as evidence of support for his candidacy. The statement cites an online poll by the Institute of Political Research, which it says placed Agyarko first in the chairmanship contest and associated his campaign with calls for discipline, unity and a return to the NPP’s traditional emphasis on service, sacrifice and loyalty.
That claim is presented by the campaign as an indication of the response to his message, although an online poll is not necessarily equivalent to a representative survey of the party’s statutory delegates. A separate Ghana Watch Initiative International report previously cited in the campaign environment sampled 2,098 constituency executives and reported Agyarko with 51.81 per cent support. That report, however, acknowledged that its projection to the wider statutory electoral college involved assumptions about delegates who were not directly sampled.
The 2028 Objective
At the centre of Agyarko’s campaign is a stated objective of rebuilding the NPP’s electoral machinery for 2028. His campaign links the chairmanship directly to the party’s presidential objective of returning the NPP to government and supporting Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the party’s flagbearer, in his bid for the presidency.
The campaign therefore portrays the National Chairman as a key figure responsible for coordinating the party’s structures, strengthening grassroots organisation, ensuring resources reach constituencies and helping maintain unity throughout the electoral cycle.
