The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is targeting all 47 parliamentary seats in the Ashanti Region in the December election, a founding member of the party, Mr George Ayisi-Boateng, has vouched.
According to him, the party is not expecting to win anything less than 80 per cent in Ashanti and that “with the despondency in the system, the sufferings of the masses which you see clearly in people’s faces, and the kind of campaign that we’ve waged and continue to wage, I don’t expect anything less than 80 per cent.”
The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) presently holds four of the 47 seats in the stronghold region of the NPP – Asawase, New Edubiase, Ahafo Ano North and Sekyere Afram Plains—while the opposition NPP has 43.
The NDC has targeted to increase its grab to 10 with what it terms as an execution of appropriate mechanisms and has said it has done self-introspection which points to the fact that the target of grabbing 10 seats is achievable as part of a broad-based plan and agenda to win at least one million votes in the Ashanti Region to guarantee a second term for President John Dramani Mahama.
Pundits have suggested that the NPP lost the 2012 election because it could not garner enough votes in the Ashanti Region but in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Kumasi, Mr Ayisi-Boateng said with their young, vibrant and energetic regional Chairman Wontumi [Bernard Antwi Boasiako], playing his role, “I’m sure God willing our seats will increase if we are unable to take all, our target is 47/47.”
He, however, did not indicate how the party intends to perform that ‘magic’.
Asked if the party was also making inroads in the Volta Region, the stronghold of the NDC, to square up, he said: “Surely so, God willing the ‘rise and change’ message has gone down well in the Volta Region because they cannot remain where they’ve been all these years.”
2008 Election
Mr Ayisi-Boateng said even though the NPP was sure its presidential candidate, Nana Akufo Addo, was going to win the 2008 and 2012 elections, and gave its followers a strong hope which did not materialise, the odds were against the NPP then, but in 2016 it is very obvious that the NPP would win.
“In 2008, a lot of odds were against us, seriously speaking, some of the decisions our government took affected the chances of the party. The building of the Jubilee House [Presidential Palace] which people thought was not a priority, then talk about the purchase of a presidential jet where people asked why that time, and that was linked to corruption, because some thought some people got some ‘cuts’ from that transaction, otherwise there was no need for the presidential jet.”
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