Poor communication caused NDC’s defeat – Okudzeto Ablakwa

National Democratic Congress (NDC) is yet to come to terms with the massive defeat it suffered at the hands of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the December 7, 2016 general election.

The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa believes the assertion that the NDC did nothing in the country was due to the poor communication on the part of the party to support the government in spreading its messages.

He said his assessment of the loss of the NDC can be largely attributed to message deficiency, non-exciting messages and uncoordinated campaign or marketing strategy.

According to him, “The issue has to do with our communication…and I think that traditionally it’s been a weakness and I have worked in the communication set up of our party before and I do know that it’s an area that we still have to get a handle on.”
Although the NDC had rich programmes and projects in its manifesto prior to the elections, it neither pushed any strong messages into a future government nor did it create a blitz around any messages. The focus was only on projects, their initiation and continuation.

The NPP, on the other hand, couched messages that went down well with many Ghanaians; the messages were also exciting.
Okudzeto speaking on Accra-based Class FM said “To what extend are we able to get our message out? We shouldn’t always be reactive, we should be proactive. And all the time in government, it appeared that we were always reacting and we couldn’t really get a handle on the media to get our message and all our good deeds out.”
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He said the NDC government has done a lot on the ground which has not been effectively communicated to Ghanaians adding that his party [NDC] lost because the NPP made a lot of mouth-watering promises.

“If you look at what was on offer, our opponent in the NPP made a lot of mouth-watering promises. They promised milk and honey and that’s the disadvantage you have when you are incumbent. When you are in government you see the books, you see the reality and you know that it’s not possible. They promised all Ghanaians universal free education, they said our progressively free programme was not good enough and we know that the last campaign it was a clear choice between progressively free and then full universal free SHS which the NPP was promising for everybody. Now they are in power, they have seen the reality and know they can’t do it for everybody so they are starting with only first years,” he added