Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mustapha Gbande, has launched a blistering attack on Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, accusing the former New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential candidate of undermining Ghana’s electoral system by prematurely conceding defeat before the Electoral Commission’s official declaration of the 2024 presidential election results.
Gbande, speaking on Face to Face on Channel One TV with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Tuesday, July 8, dismissed Bawumia’s much-publicised concession to then-NDC flagbearer and now-President John Dramani Mahama as nothing more than political theatrics aimed at earning public approval.
He branded the move “populist and dangerous,” insisting that it overstepped the bounds of democratic decorum and disrespected the constitutional role of the Electoral Commission.
“The day of declaration, right from the time Dr Bawumia made that pre-conceived defeat, needless because if you’ve lost an election, you wait for the Electoral Commission to declare, he made himself the Electoral Commission to come and declare a defeat for himself,” Gbande said bluntly.
He further argued that concessions should follow formal announcements, not precede them, emphasizing the distinction between conceding in principle and prematurely assuming the EC’s role.
“Concession is not when you come and pronounce that you have been defeated. A concession is when a figure is declared, you disagree, but you concede,” he clarified.
Gbande dismissed suggestions that Bawumia’s gesture averted chaos, calling such narratives manufactured and misleading.
“They said because they believed that without him conceding the country was to be chaotic. Nothing was going to happen in the country. And the temperature was absolutely normal. Everybody was happy that the NPP had lost,” he stated.
According to Gbande, the entire episode was orchestrated to position Bawumia as a statesman while side-stepping the rule of law. He accused the former Vice President of seeking praise for an act that was neither necessary nor appropriate.
“I think that it [conceding] was dangerous, because he created an impression that he had lost. By law, he was not the one to declare an election. It’s sloganeering and populist when you rush to do what you have not been sanctioned to do. Or what you needed not to have done and want to receive praise for it. The EC should be allowed to do its work,” Gbande asserted.
Although Bawumia’s early concession drew applause from some quarters as a mature gesture that reinforced democratic norms, Gbande and other critics have firmly rejected that interpretation, insisting it set a troubling precedent and blurred the lines of institutional responsibility.
As debate continues to swirl over the implications of Bawumia’s move, Gbande’s remarks underscore growing concerns within the NDC that political showmanship may be eroding public respect for Ghana’s democratic institutions.
