[ 2016-12-13 ]

NDC falls short of one million vote target in Ashanti, let alone 1.5m
True to the prediction by the Reformed Patriotic
Democrats in February 2015 that the one million
votes targeted by the National Democratic Congress
(NDC) in Ashanti region was a joke, the party
failed to garner enough votes to achieve its
target.

President Mahama, during a tour of the region in
November, indicated that the NDC would win
additional nine parliamentary seats in addition to
the one million vote target in the region.

The NDC had hoped that the electorate in Ashanti
would vote on the basis of performance, hence the
13 parliamentary seats and one million votes’
target.

The President had also predicted a 54%-57% victory
but the NDC lost two of the seats at Ahafo Ano
North (Tepa) and Adansi South (New Edubiase),
maintaining only three at Ejura-Sekyedumasi,
Asawase and Sekyere Afram Plains (Drobonso),
securing about 500,000 votes in Ashanti region,
with the president securing 4,713,277 (44.40%) of
10,615,361 of the total valid votes cast in the
just ended polls.

The Vice President, Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah
Arthur, swayed by the seeming teeming supporters
of the NDC, during a campaign tour of the Ashanti,
also predicted that the NDC could garner 1.5
million votes or more.

Meanwhile Issah Alhassan also reports that the
Ashanti Regional Executives of the ruling National
Democratic Congress (NDC) are currently licking
their wounds after failing woefully to attain
their much talked about One Million Votes Agenda.

The regional branch of the NDC has been badly
bruised following its failure to achieve their
audacious target of securing thirty percent of
total vote cast in the region.

Not only did the party fail to achieve its target,
its performance in the December 7 elections fell
far below the previous 28.5% in the previous
elections.

The ruling party, in early 2014, launched
‘Operation One Million Votes’ in Ashanti,
seeking to bolster the over 600,000 votes attained
in the 2012 elections and winning additional six
seats to the existing four.

Even though their main opponents, the New
Patriotic Party (NPP) led by its Chairman, Mr.
Bernard Antwi Boasiako, had consistently called
their bluff and described the target as laughable,
the ruling party stuck to its guns and
‘stubbornly’ revised the figure upward to
1.5million votes.

But it appears the executives of the ruling party
were only tickling themselves and laughing as
their performance in last Wednesday’s polls was
nothing short of embarrassment.

Even before the Electoral Commission releases the
official figures, The Chronicle can
authoritatively state that the NDC may attain less
than 40% of its 1.5million target.

The party has additionally seen its share of the
parliamentary seats reduced from four to three;
having lost both New Edubiase and AhafoAno North
seats to the NPP.

It, however, managed to win back the Ejura
Sekyedumase seat and narrowly maintained the
Asawase and Sekyere Afram Plains seats.

But information available to The Chronicle
indicates that the defeated NPP Candidate for
Asawase, Alhaji Alidu Seidu, is considering going
to court to challenge the results which he alleged
were manipulated.

What is, however, clear is that the ruling party
met its match in the person of the NPP regional
chairman, Mr. Bernard Antwi Boasiako, aka Chairman
Wontumi, whose hard work and resilience thwarted
their efforts.

It would be recalled that Mr. Kwabena Adjei, the
founder and 2008 Presidential Candidate of the
Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD) on February 28,
2015 said, as published in The Chronicle then,
that the one million votes targeted by the ruling
National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Ashanti
region in the 2016 elections is a joke.

Mr. Adjei, also known as Bambata, said NDC could
not even achieve 25% votes mark at the polls let
alone maintain the previous 28% votes record.

“I can bet on my life that NDC cannot bag 1,000
votes here in Ashanti. Their (NDC) claim is a
joke” he said and explained that the electorate
is simply disappointed in President Mahama’s
administration for messing the once vibrant
economy under President Kufuor.

He said the NDC is fast losing grounds in Ashanti
region and pointed to cracks at its front and
explaining that the NDC had destroyed almost all
the good things the Kufuor administration put in
place to improve upon the lot of the ordinary
Ghanaian.

“Almost all the social interventions introduced
by President Kufuor for the benefit of the
ordinary Ghanaian have collapsed under the
NDC”.

The RPD founder had mentioned the School Feeding
Programme (SFP), National Health Insurance Scheme
(NHIS) and the Metro Mass Transit (MMT), the mass
spray of Cocoa, abandoning of the affordable
housing project, the Sofoline Interchange project
which, which on completion would serve four
regions, maternal care for pregnant women, the
National.

Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), the capitation
grant and the Metro Mass Transit with free bus
riding for school children, as interventions which
were institutionalized by the Kufuor government
but are currently shadows of their glorious past.

Mr. Adjei blamed NDC’s failure and poor showing
on the caliber of some ministers described as
novices in the art of governance and not matured
enough to practice as politicians let alone be
entrusted with positions in government.

Source - The Chronicle

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