ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I return to early 1996 and the GPT’s first election campaign. In Chapter 3, I described the process that led to the party’s formation, less than two months before the March 1996 National Assembly elections. Then, in Chapter 4, I discussed the GPT’s actual election results at both the national and district levels, and in Chapter 5, I introduced the life stories of some of the leading actors in the 1996 elections. The next step is to examine my ‘how’ and one of my ‘why’ questions for the 1996 election. Thus, in this chapter, I will analyse the GPT’s first campaign in order to answer the question of what is the GPT? Then I will attempt to explain its impressive first election performance.
