Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Ghana is approaching fast and the political turf is getting really stimulated with political activity. The date is December 7.
The competitors, now fully candidates, are sounding their battle cries louder.
The battle line is drawn obviously between the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). Other political parties, especially in the Presidential race are largely trailers.
Surely evaluations and schemes of strategists of the various political parties and perhaps independent candidates, will reflect some regional dimensions.
Factors interplaying on the turf include ethnicity, gender, religion, age, perhaps ideology, among others.
Volta Region, one of the 10 regions of Ghana, is undoubtedly intriguing, for being perhaps the most lopsided in political classification.
The region has consistently voted “one-way” in all past elections since 1992, when the fourth republic was ushered in.
The region is a storehouse of votes for the ruling NDC. Percentage votes of NDC’s Presidential candidate in the Volta Region have been between 94.5 per cent, highest, that is in 1996 and 82.46 per cent, lowest, in 2008.
The trend is for the NPP to improve on its performance at every election with the best performance being 15.38 per cent in 2008, from a dismal 3.6 per cent in 1992.
NPP currently has no Member of Parliament (MP) from the region, after the Joseph Kwaku Nayan’s two term tenure, 2000 to 2008. That is the Nkwanta-North Constituency.
The NDC by its performance, dubs the Volta Region its “World Bank”. Rightly so. Indeed the NDC is a dragon there.
Circumstances of the 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, however, could be jerking the dragon and making it restive.
NPP ‘Foot Soldiers’ traversing the region and on radio stations are louder than before and could be weakening that sentimental attachment of the people there to the NDC.
It is not uncommon now to see NPP flags hanging conspicuously on taxis, hardly seen in the past.
I find an interview granted state-owned wire service Ghana News Agency (GNA) in June by Makafui Woanya, NPP Volta Regional Organizer quite useful, putting the article together.
He said “the issues interplaying to influence the voting behaviour of electorate in the Volta Region in the forthcoming general election, have gone beyond the commonplace sentimental attachments of the residents”.
He continued thus, “that it was no longer a game as usual for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to use unscientific reasons to whip up sentiments against the NPP, as they (NDC) had real questions to answer”.
He said the NDC was on the political turf, trumpeting its attachment to the people and infrastructural development of the area, which the NPP was countering with a direct message of economic empowerment through jobs to raise the living standards of the people.
Mr Woanya said the NPP was coming into the political picture in the Volta Region more strongly than before, trying hard to resurrect historically linkages of the people there with its (NPP) political and ideological tradition.
He said some people were simply “coming back to roots,” while others were “looking around themselves, things going on, their personal circumstances, to form political opinions”.
In an election, every single vote is important, and so are those from the largely predictable Volta Region.
The high votes for the NDC there could be ‘buffer’ to offset possible swings against the Party from the less lopsided voter-pattern regions.
In the 2016 polls, the NDC is targeting an ambitious one million votes gap for its Presidential Candidate, but John Kwadwo Gyapong, the Party’s Regional Chairman conceded the Party must have to work extra hard to attain it.
He said the Party must battle the eight yearly rebound in NPP performance in the region and the corresponding slump in voter-turnout to attain that proposition.
I am afraid, I am afraid, our plan is attainable but we must cover all the ground, using all the tools, reaching all the targets with the appropriate messages, timely and adequately, using the right messages and messengers, to make it, the Volta NDC Chairman stated.
Mr Gyapong, exhibited this analytical composure, at the launch of the Tertiary Educational Institutions Network, (TEIN), of the NDC Holy Spirit College of Education (HOSCO), in Ho.
For him “votes garnered by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Volta Region in the forthcoming Presidential and Parliamentary elections could be the lever to determine defeat or victory for the Party”.
The NDC Volta Regional Chairman has a winning plan. All NDC faithful, should get four others to vote their way.
The “Volta Gap one million votes,” under which all 26 constituencies in the Region, are expected to return 90 per cent and more votes for President John Mahama is supposedly the brainchild of the Party’s youth wing.
Aside Mr Gyapong’s qualified optimism, the impression created at NDC campaign events and in the media, is that all is smooth sailing.
Against that backdrop, however, is the evident vociferous challenge by the NPP, matching the NDC in their back yard with some effect.
The NDC’s campaign message is mainly infrastructural development, the flagships-University of Health and Allied Sciences, (UHAS), the aerodrome being built in Ho, the Eastern Corridor road CHPs Compounds, School Projects scattered all over the region, electricity to more communities, provision of potable water, regime continuity, among others.
Another NDC campaign slice is exciting the emotions of the people against their main opponent, the NPP, especially Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, Presidential Candidate.
He is portrayed as divisive, intolerant, overly ambitious and his (Nana Addo’s) Party, as exclusivist.
However, the NPP campaigners are out and about dismissing those projects being glorified by the NDC as common place and pointing out many other important needs undone, roads especially that are in horrible state
They are touting Nana Addo as decisive, an achiever, focused person who sees governance in Ghana’s current circumstances not as ‘business-as-usual’.
That suggestion that victory for him, could mean a renaissance in Ghana is getting the attention of many floating minds.
The NPP is also hyping Nana Addo as the only Presidential Candidate with the strength-of-purpose to tackle the alleged hemorrhage of public finances, thereby releasing funds for development.
To the NDC message that it had used its two tenures to secure the financial pillars of state, putting the finances of state on even keel, the NPP in the Volta Region is countering that the supposed successes in that area are at the expense of poor public sector pay, gross underfunding of education and health, non-payment of subventions to some state institutions for both capital projects and logistics and in some cases important cash claims of employees.
Other issues being tabled by the NPP are, cost of living, especially high cost of power, lack of jobs and the withdrawal of allowances for student teachers and nurses.
The Health Insurance Scheme is slowly establishing as a major platform issue-working or not working.
Whereas, George Tasiame, Public Relations Officer of the Ho Municipal Office of the Health Insurance Scheme insist the Scheme is alive because “the high numbers turning up to get biometric cards could not be for cosmetic reasons”, the NPP position here that the Scheme is failing appears connecting.
A cardinal point of NPP approach to the forthcoming elections is ballot security, ensuring only the eligible cast votes.
The Party had given some inkling to its seriousness in that direction, raising objections to a good number of people being listed on the electoral roll and with some success.
This stance they believe should reduce the number of ineligible Togolese and Togolese of Ghanaian descent trickling into Ghana to cast votes.
Obviously, the battle in the Volta Region is a straight one between the NDC and the NPP as at the national level, with some Independent Candidates at the parliamentary level as important factors.
Surely, the NDC and the NPP have on their drawing boards their big plans of reaching their targets at different levels in different groups, using the most effective channels and with periodic evaluations.
Both parties, especially the NDC in the Volta Region, appear comfortable with the orthodox big rallies as campaign tools and also connecting with known allies mainly.
Messages appear to be crafted and targeted at members only, “sort of cheer songs/slogans,” hardly earning media coverage.
The Party’s local executives and political appointees appear not as dexterous, dynamic and charismatic enough to keep the NDC in sharper focus.
The NPP also has a project to take 30 per cent votes and win at least 3 seats, dubbed “Agenda 3-30”.
“It is doable and we are working towards it, “John Peter Amewu, NPP Volta Regional Chairman stated this on City Breakfast show lately.
He considered “Agenda” difficult and indeed ambitious though, which is very true.
Mr Amewu rightly put the bet on the northern and middle belts, where the big gains could come from for his NPP.
I guess the NDC will still take Volta Region but with marginal drop in performance, perhaps big enough to derail the course to victory on the whole.
From the south, where the NDC/Volta attachment is strongest, the high votes could ebb going north, where the factors are more intricate, opening up better chances for the NPP.
Beyond the fleeting fanfare, comradeship, conviviality, obsession, orgies, thunderous noise at grand political party rallies before the cameras, are simmering dynamics, seemingly commonplace, whose recognition and management will influence the elections results in the Volta Region.