Dr. Alex Otti, the Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate in Abia State, has stated that there is more to winning elections than having large crowds at campaign rallies.
He made the remarks on Wednesday at a forum hosted by the LP leadership and titled “Roadmap 2023: Election Path to Victory.”
While the crowd size at rallies is not a reliable indicator of a party’s or candidate’s popularity, he believes it is an important factor that cannot be overlooked.
He cautioned, however, that educating supporters, raising awareness, and mobilizing the electorate to vote are critical to winning elections.
Otti stated that the organization of supporters is the necessary structure that the Labour Party must focus on in order to not lose votes on election day.
The governorship candidate stated that the Labour Party must have representatives in every polling unit in order to secure not only votes but also voters.
He said:
As Labour Party, we need to now get more organized because we must win the presidential, governorship, House of Assembly, House of Reps, and Senatorial elections that we filled people.
So, since we must win, we must organize ourselves.
When people are talking about structure, what they are basically talking about is organisation.
You may have votes everywhere, but if you have not organised yourselves in such a manner that you can harness the votes, the results may surprise you.
I charge the leadership of the party to sit down and begin to plan the election.
Rallies are very good, they mobilise people, they create awareness but I must add that rallies do not win elections.
So, what wins elections will be the vote.
We must speak to the voters, a lot of them are still not well-educated.
We must have people in every polling unit to secure not just the votes but the voters also.
I can tell you that our opponents are strategising and part of their strategies is that, ‘if we cannot win this election, then we‘ll need to destabilise it’.
So, on that election day, some people will come purposely to destabilise voting in different polling units. So, we must be prepared for that.