NPP primaries: Freda Prempeh, Sekyere go unopposed in Ahafo Region

There will be contest in two of the four constituencies where the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has sitting Members of Parliament (MPs) during the party’s impending primaries in the Ahafo Region.

Out of the six constituencies in the region, the ruling NPP won four seats during the 2016 general election but was unable to win the Asutifi South and the Asunafo South seats where the National Democratic Congress (NDC) strongmen, Alhaji Collins Dauda and Eric Opoku have continued to win the elections during the Fourth Republic.

Contestants

At the end of the vetting exercise, only the incumbent MP for Tano North, Ms Freda Prempeh, who is also the Deputy Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection and the sitting MP for Tano South, Mr Benjamin Yeboah Sekyere, who is also the Deputy Ahafo Regional Minister, were given the nod to run unopposed during the primaries.

However, the sitting MP for Asunafo North, Mr Evans Opoku-Bobie, who is also the Ahafo Regional Minister, will have to battle it out with two other contestants to determine who will get the nod to contest the seat during the 2020 general election.

They are Mr Paul Pharm and Mr Farouk Nkrumah, who are also stalwarts of the party in the area.

In the Asutifi North Constituency, three people have lined up to challenge incumbent Joseph Daha’s bid to contest the seat once again.

Observers are, therefore, watching to see whether Patrick Bano, William Frimpong and Stephen Kwaku will be able to cut short the ambition of incumbent Daha during the primary.

Asutifi South factor

The incumbent NDC MP for Asutifi South, Alhaji Collins Dauda, has proven to be invincible since the country entered the Fourth Republic in 1992.

Apart from 2001 when NPP’s Cecilia Djan Amoah won the postponed parliamentary polls, Alhaji Dauda has won all other parliamentary elections.

Mrs Amoah, who stood in when her husband died few weeks before the 2001 general elections, managed to beat Alhaji Dauda when she garnered 8,220 votes as against 7,670 votes.

But in the 2004 general election, Alhaji Dauda regained his seat when he beat NPP’s Thomas Broni, who had earlier defeated incumbent Cecilia Djan Amoah during his party’s primary, by 9,668 votes to 8,763 votes.

Since then, he has continued to win all parliamentary elections and it will be a shocker should NPP’s parliamentary candidate, Mr Yaw Owusu Brempong, who is the Chairman of the Ahafo Development Association, manage to wrest the seat during the 2020 general election.