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Described by many political commentators as an embarrassing defeat to have ever been handed an incumbent government, the 2016 electoral defeat of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been attributed to several issues by many members of the party.

While many lay the blame on poor leadership, others are of the view that ‘lack of funds’ for campaign by the grassroots may have been the reason for such a defeat.

Former President John Mahama appointee and diplomat, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah however indicated that the party’s “backward-looking” campaign message in 2016 was one of the main reasons why the party was kicked out of office in December 2016.

He was responding to a question on what he thought was the reason for the NDC’s loss in the 2016 elections on “21 minutes with KKB”.

According to the Former Trade and Industry Minister, the NDC’s focus on the past with little to no reference to what it was willing to offer Ghanaians in the years ahead was the reason why the party lost the elections.
Mr Spio-Garbrah, NDC flagbearer hopeful, pointed out that Ghanaians were looking for a message of hope, the party failed to offer promises of free secondary education, dams in every village in the country as well as factories in all districts swayed votes in their opponent’s favour.

He stressed “there are many reasons and it varies from locality to locality since there will always be communication challenges, the communication message of the NDC was backward-looking in the sense of looking at what we have done or achieved.

“The message was looking backward – listing the projects that were done and captured in the Green Book but the electorates said fine, we gave you our taxes to do that but what are you going to do for us between 2016 and 2020?

“The 2016 campaign message was not articulate enough to convince electorates to re-elect the NDC for another four-year term and some aggrieved party members, particularly those in the Volta Region felt neglected and disappointed.
“They claimed the world bank of the party, did not benefit from projects undertaken by the party while in government hence their decision to vote against the party.

“The people in the Volta Region which is often called the NDC’s World Bank felt disappointed because they did not get some of the projects we did in other regions,” Mr Spio-Garbrah intimated.